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Episode Summary In this episode of Elevate Care, hosts Kerry Perez and Liz Cunningham dive deep into the evolving landscape of healthcare candidate acquisition and retention. Leveraging their extensive backgrounds in strategy, marketing, and technology, they explore how regulatory changes and the rise of Generative AI are reshaping how clinicians search for jobs and how organizations must adapt their digital marketing strategies. The conversation uncovers critical insights into the shifting balance between high-tech self-service adoption and the enduring value of high-touch human connection in the hiring process. They also challenge traditional notions of loyalty programs, proposing a "long tail" approach to clinician engagement that prioritizes consistent service and access over points-based rewards. Tune in to discover actionable strategies for optimizing workforce solutions and building lasting relationships with talent in a rapidly changing market.Episode Chapters00:00 — Introduction: Candidate Acquisition Trends01:31 — Regulatory Changes and Gen AI in Job Search04:13 — The Future of Job Boards05:46 — Balancing Authenticity with AI Automation08:09 — Adoption of Self-Service Technology10:12 — Lessons from Locum Tenens Tech12:26 — Hyper-Personalization via AI15:03 — Human vs. Digital Brand Loyalty16:54 — Redefining Loyalty in Healthcare Staffing21:58 — Digital Transformation in Credentialing and Onboarding24:12 — Conclusion and Key Takeaways Sponsors: We're proudly sponsored by AMN Healthcare, the leader in healthcare staffing and workforce solutions. Explore their services at AMN Healthcare. Learn how AMN Healthcare's workforce flexibility technology helps health systems cut costs and improve efficiency. Click here to explore the case study and discover smarter ways to manage your resources!Discover how WorkWise is redefining workforce management for healthcare. Visit workwise.amnhealthcare.com to learn more.About The Show: Elevate Care delves into the latest trends, thinking, and best practices shaping the landscape of healthcare. From total talent management to solutions and strategies to expand the reach of care, we discuss methods to enable high quality, flexible workforce and care delivery. We will discuss the latest advancements in technology, the impact of emerging models and settings, physical and virtual, and address strategies to identify and obtain an optimal workforce mix. Tune in to gain valuable insights from thought leaders focused on improving healthcare quality, workforce well-being, and patient outcomes. Learn more about the show here. Connect with Our Hosts:Kerry on LinkedInNishan on LinkedInLiz on LinkedIn Find Us On:WebsiteYouTubeSpotifyAppleInstagramLinkedInXFacebook Powered by AMN Healthcare Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
How do you design compensation that truly motivates and retains top talent?
Retention or loyalty on your roadmap? Happy to brainstorm → professorgame.com/chat We unpack the "tell the cab driver where to go" strategy, health quests, and the eight magic words that shift self-talk from guilt and shame to possibility and lasting change on this chat with Stamina Lab CEO Glen Lubbert. We discuss how to turn health and well-being into a game you can actually win. Glen is the co-founder and CEO of Stamina Lab, a health tech company that helps people create lasting well-being—not through willpower, hacks, habits, or fixing themselves—but by building on the inner resources and skills they already have. His company combines solution-focused health coaching, behavior science, and personalized data to improve energy, focus and resilience—without the usual shame or overwhelm. Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Guest Links and Info Website: staminalab.io LinkedIn: Glen Lubbert Instagram: @staminalab.io X/Twitter: @glenlubbert YouTube: youtube.com/@staminalabTV Links to episode mentions: Proposed guest: Dr. Deborah Teplow Recommended book: Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia Favorite game: The Five Crowns Card Game Lets's do stuff together! Let's chat about your gamification project 3 Gamification Hacks To Boost Your Community's Revenue Start Your Community on Skool for Free Game of Skool Community YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Ask a question
Just because a decision feels good now doesn't mean it's the right one for your gym's long-term success.In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper breaks down 12 choices that seem smart in the moment but can sabotage a gym's profitability down the line.He explains how mistakes such as paid-in-full deals and monthly discounts erode value and bleed out revenue, and he shares how short-term conveniences, such as hiring friends or subleasing to trainers, create downstream operational headaches.You'll hear how ego-driven decisions to criticize competitors or train to be the best athlete in your gym steal focus from the systems that actually grow revenue.Coop also discusses retention and pricing errors, and he explains how three major growth traps—expanding too early, trying to serve everyone and buying failing gyms—create more problems than they solve.Tune in to learn the sustainable strategies top gyms use to avoid these mistakes and make smart decisions that pay dividends for decades.LinksGym Owners UnitedBook a Call1:23 - Discount death spiral8:07 - Staff and space nightmares14:40 - Ego-driven mistakes21:33 - Retention and pricing errors24:50 - Growth without foundation
Collecting email addresses is no longer enough. To succeed in the current digital landscape, marketers must transition from building lists to cultivating communities. In this deep dive, lead gen expert Jennie Wright explains why the human touch remains the ultimate competitive advantage in an AI-saturated market. What You'll Learn: Community Ecosystems: Why treating your list like a community reduces attrition and boosts engagement. Combating AI Fatigue: How to balance backend efficiency with the genuine connection audiences crave. Inbound Attraction: Strategies to keep your pipeline full through permission-based, value-driven offers. Wright emphasizes that while tools like AI can handle the data, they cannot replace the strategy. Listen now to discover how to humanize your automation and turn cold traffic into loyal brand advocates.
Ready to break the $100 ceiling and build toward consistent $500 months on TPT? We walk through seven practical strategies that compound: building an email list that actually drives clicks, dialing in TPT SEO so buyers can find you, and transforming previews into guided tours that sell. Along the way, we show how to read your data, identify conversion gaps, and replicate wins across a product line so each successful resource becomes a template for growth.We start with traffic you control - simple email systems, focused lead magnets, and timely messages that connect your content to classroom needs. Then we push for discoverability on the platform itself, using clean titles, clear descriptions, and accurate tags that match real teacher search behavior. With more eyes on your listings, we turn to conversion: what a high-performing preview looks like, why 300+ views is a smart threshold for analysis, and how one optimized template can lift a whole catalog.Retention ties it all together. We map out how to extend a bestseller into a cohesive line, bundle for real savings, and add subtle upsells in both previews and product descriptions that nudge buyers toward multi-item carts. Finally, we talk about accelerating your learning curve through coaching, courses, and a focused planning workshop, so you stop guessing and start executing a clear 2026 plan with measurable goals.If you're ready to grow with intention - more visibility, stronger conversions, and repeat buyers - hit play. Subscribe, share this with a fellow TPT seller, and leave a review telling us which strategy you'll implement first.Download the free guide here! https://rebrandedteacher.kartra.com/page/your-first-100 Sign Up for the TPT Profit Plan Workshop: https://rebrandedteacher.kartra.com/page/hun253Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WOq3VUpvKMgWatch My YouTube Video About Starting an Email List: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPgMyw8lGN0 Check Out My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/laurenfulton My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentschappler/ My Other YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenATsch Free Rebranded Teacher Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/749538092194115 Support the show
If your car wash membership churn feels out of control or unpredictable, this episode will change the way you think about retention forever.In Episode 12 of the Car Wash Growth Playbook, Josh Taylor reveals the real reason car wash members cancel… and it's almost never the price. It's usage. When members stop washing regularly, they stop feeling the value, and cancellations follow. But when you build the habit of washing and communicate consistently with your members, retention skyrockets.The industry average membership lifespan is 7 to 9 months.Our customers average 17.5 months, and some reach 36 months or more.The difference is one thing: a retention strategy that communicates.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why price is rarely the real reason members cancel• The psychology behind membership retention and habit formation• How weekly reminders increase usage and reduce churn• Why “poking the bear” is a myth and communication builds loyalty• The ideal wash frequency for retention (the magic number is three per month)• How to create a simple retention system that stabilizes your revenue• Practical scripts and reminders you can send to your members todayIf you want predictable, recurring membership revenue in your car wash business, this episode gives you the playbook.Listen now and start keeping members longer, increasing usage, and building a more profitable membership program.#CarWashBusiness #CarWashMarketing #CarWashMemberships #MembershipRetention #ReduceChurn #RecurringRevenue #CustomerRetention #TextClubMarketing #CarWashOperators #JoshTaylor #CarWashGrowth #CarWashSystems #CustomerHabits
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Bending Spoons is the acquisition machine of the tech world. They have acquired the likes of Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Streamyard and more. However, they never open their gates to the secrets behind Evernote's product machine. Today that changes with Federico Simionato joining 20Product. Fede has been a Product Lead at Bending Spoons for 8 years where he has led product teams at Evernote, WeTransfer and more. AGENDA: 03:02 From Dentist Games to $11BN Bending Spoons 04:54 Advice for Aspiring Product Managers 05:38 Building a Coveted Brand at Bending Spoons 07:43 Evaluating and Testing New Product Ideas 13:35 How Evernote has Mastered User Retention 25:24 The Impact of AI on Product Design and Prototyping 31:19 How Bending Spoons Does Product Launches and Lessons Learned 33:27 How Every Product Team Should Do Monthly Updates to Users 36:38 Recording and Transparency in Updates 38:06 Lessons from Failed Product Launches 45:14 Structuring Teams and Acquisitions 47:12 Monetization Strategies and Push Notifications 57:21 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Reflections
“So if you take any great startup and look backwards, you'll see that 90 percent of their growth came from like 10 percent of the stuff that they tried. So how do you find that 10 percent as quickly as possible?”Matt Lerner has advised hundreds of startups on how to grow. Now, the CEO of SYSTM has written a book called Growth Levers and How to Find Them where he shares his approach. This episode of CRAFTED. is full of actionable advice on how you can grow your products and companies. Matt will tell us about the mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their products to thinking about their customers needs. We'll talk about jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) style interviewing and why it's such a powerful approach, but also why at first Matt was put off by some of the overly academic language that often goes with jobs. And we'll talk about how you can get new customers to that aha moment as quickly as possible, so they stick with your product. Plus, lots of real talk about founders and the mistakes they make. ---Featured voices:Matt Lerner (Founder and CEO of SYSTM; the book is Growth Levers and How to Find Them)Me (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.---And if you please…TAKE THE SURVEY: It'll just take five minutes and these surveys are actually really important for podcasters. Share with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon---Key Moments:(02:10) - 90 percent of growth comes 10 percent of the stuff you try (03:43) - Over-thinkers, under-thinkers, and delegators: the 3 types of founders and the mistakes they make (07:30) - Why the pace of learning is so important (09:41) - Great examples of companies that learn quickly (10:42) - The “locksmith moment” and why you need to find yours (12:35) - Jobs-to-be-Done style interviewing and why it's so effective (13:57) - How to do a JTBD interview (15:05) - The mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their product to thinking about the customers' needs – and why it's so hard for them to do so (21:14) - Growth Sprints and how to set them up for success (24:57) - Retention and customer activation: still (!) overlooked by most and why it's so critical (28:50) - Matt writes a blog post on the spot about how working at an oil refinery taught him about startups (31:26) - Writing a book is not an agile process! And the fantastic reception for Growth Levers
In today's episode, Kelly tears down one of the biggest myths in the online business world: that revenue is the ultimate marker of success. She explains why revenue on its own is an incomplete (and often misleading) measure, and why retention, reconversion, revenue quality, and gross margin are the real drivers of a sustainable, profitable business. You'll learn how two businesses with the same revenue can have a 5× difference in take-home income, why so many entrepreneurs unknowingly sabotage their profitability in pursuit of "more," and how to set deeply aligned, purposeful income and impact goals for 2026. Kelly also breaks down "The Four R's," the levers that expert-level business owners use to increase margins without increasing workload, and why this is the path to more peace, more profit, and more purpose in the coming year. TIMESTAMPS: 00:28 – 02:30 — How revenue fixation developed & the missing conversation around revenue quality 06:10 – 07:12 — The danger of chasing external revenue benchmarks 07:12 – 09:00 — The wild variance in take-home income at the same revenue level 09:00 – 10:40 — The hidden cost of constant revenue pursuit & why margin matters 12:15 – 13:56 — The 5X income opportunity hiding in your existing business 13:56 – 15:15 — The Four R's: Retention, Renewals, Referrals & Reactivations 15:15 – 17:00 — Why new customer acquisition is the least profitable path 18:20 – 19:30 — Reconversions: your lifetime value multiplier 19:30 – 20:30 — How mature CEOs vs. novice CEOs think about growth 20:30 – 21:20 — Permission to take a "season of excellence" instead of constant scaling RESOURCES: Learn more about our Virtual Business School Gold program, where we teach our Multiplier Method to increase customer lifetime value and scale while growing profits: https://go.virtualbusinessschool.com/gold Have questions about the program? Email Nicole, our program director, at nicole@kellyroachinternational. Join Kelly's FREE weekly email newsletter: https://kellyroachinternational.kit.com/news Follow Kelly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellyroachofficial/ Follow Kelly on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelly.roach.520/ Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyroachint/
Conscious Millionaire J V Crum III ~ Business Coaching Now 6 Days a Week
David Gonzalez leads Arbol, the financial success platform for higher education. They help colleges boost enrollment, retention, and revenue while giving students clear financial pathways to succeed. Welcome to the Conscious Millionaire Show. 3X each week - M / W / F Become an Ultra-Performer - Entrepreneurs Committed to The Top-1%. Revenues $250K to $50M? Sign up for complimentary Breakout Session with JV. Find out your #1 block keeping you from scaling faster, profiting more, and making your greatest impact. Schedule Your Breakthough Session Join Host JV Crum III, with 2 exits and over 75M revenues in his companies, he is the Ultra-Performer Coach for 6- to 8-figure owners ready to join the top 1% of Ultra-Performers. Season 12 of the award-winning Conscious Millionaire Show. World's #1 conscious business and performance podcast for foundeers and entrepreneurs who want to become Ultra-Performers. Access Conscious Millionaire Show Millions of Listeners in 190 countries. Inc Magazine "Top 13 Business Podcasts" with over 3,000 episodes and 100 million listeners world-wde. Listen 3X a week.
Are you exhausted from constantly chasing new clients on Instagram, TikTok, and referral apps, but not seeing your income reflect how hard you work behind the chair? In this episode, Ambrosia Carey breaks down the data-backed 5% client retention rule and shows you how a tiny improvement in retention can boost your salon revenue by 25–95% without adding more days, longer hours, or triple-booking chaos. If you're a hairstylist, colorist, booth renter, or salon owner who wants to build a sustainable, freedom-based beauty business, this conversation walks you through the difference between client acquisition and client retention, why social media can't be your only growth strategy, and how top-performing salons retain more first-time guests and turn them into loyal, high-value clients. You'll learn simple, repeatable systems you can plug into your existing booking software to stabilize your income, pre-book smarter, and create a client experience that feels elevated, personal, and totally on-brand. If you've been craving a clear roadmap to become the go-to stylist in your market, increase your rebook rate, and build a waitlist-worthy beauty business, this episode is for you. Watch our FREE Profit Maker Webinar Replay HERE: https://small-kiwi-98108.myflodesk.com/ao7u0l0qzq Enjoy our Marketing Guide Freebie HERE: https://small-kiwi-98108.myflodesk.com/ke6k90nlq2 Share your experience and leave us a review HERE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/successful-stylist-academy/id1584273127 Key Takeaways 1. A small 5% increase in client retention can raise your profitability by 25–95%, making retention one of the most powerful levers for growing your salon income without adding more hours behind the chair. 2. Top-performing salons rely on new clients for only about 10% of their total revenue; the rest comes from returning guests who pre-book, buy retail, say yes to add-ons, and refer friends, because the experience is consistent and predictable. 3. Client acquisition (CAC) is expensive in both money and energy: think content creation, DMs, inquiries, and ad spend, while a retained client costs virtually zero to reacquire and is far easier to serve at a higher level. 4. Retention is not about perfection; it's about a repeatable client journey: clear consultation, simple at-home routines, a strong checkout process, and an agreed-upon maintenance schedule that protects your client's hair and your time. 5. A simple three-touch system: post-visit check-in, midpoint reminder, and pre-book or follow-up nudge, can dramatically reduce ghosting, extend the lifetime value of each guest, and make your income more stable month after month. 6. Low pre-booking rates and stretched-out maintenance cycles are not marketing problems, they're communication problems; tightening how you talk about timing, pricing, and future appointments can quickly improve your retention numbers. 7. You don't need "more clients" to grow; you need to deepen the relationship with 80–120 ideal clients who feel seen, cared for, and excited to come back. Freeing up your calendar and nervous system so you can pursue education, brand partnerships, or salon ownership without burning out. 8. By focusing on one improvement (like pre-booking, consultation, or checkout) and tracking one number for 90 days, you can increase your retention by 15% and build a more profitable, sustainable, and freedom-based beauty business. For more tips, find us on Instagram Subscribe on YouTube for updates Take 15% off our favorite skincare line, Pharmagel with code SSA15: https://pharmagel.net/?ref=SSA15
Send us a textIn this episode, Katarina Forster sits down with Jena Mehlberg, a seasoned beauty industry professional and entrepreneur with nearly two decades of hands-on experience.Jena's journey in beauty began early. Inspired by her mother, who owned a massage therapy business, she launched her own mobile beauty business at just 19 years old. Over the years, she grew that mobile venture into a successful brick-and-mortar salon, which she owned for eight years before selling it to pursue her next chapter in tech.Having worked in nearly every role — employee, renter, salon owner, and employer — Jena brings a rare, well-rounded perspective to the conversation. With a degree in Business Management and a passion for blending beauty with business strategy, she has spent the past three years coaching beauty professionals across the country.In 2024, Jena began building her own CRM platform designed specifically for the beauty industry, aiming to bridge the gap between beauty and technology. Her mission is to create tools that elevate the client experience while empowering beauty pros to grow, streamline, and adapt in a rapidly evolving landscape.Beyond her work in salons and software, Jena has spoken at conferences nationwide, sharing her expertise on entrepreneurship, women's empowerment, diversity in beauty, and creating authentic client experiences. She uses her platform to advocate for greater representation industry-wide. Outside of work, she is a proud mom to her son, Hayden, who already mirrors her entrepreneurial drive and love of travel.What We Cover in This EpisodeBuilding long-lasting client relationshipsThe deeper emotional meaning behind beauty servicesJena's shift from service provider → educator → tech founderClient retention strategies that actually workHow automation can support human connectionThe future of beauty with AI and emerging technologyThe importance of constant education and mindset workCreating emotional and transformative experiences for clientsNavigating growth and adaptation in a fast-changing industryThis conversation is packed with insights for beauty professionals at every stage, whether you're behind the chair, educating, or building something new.Connect With JenaSalon Software: https://salonflow.io/homeMastering Beauty Academy: https://www.catalystbeautygroup.com/mbaInstagram: @jenamehlbergFacebook: Jena Mehlberg
David Gonzalez leads Arbol, the financial success platform for higher education. They help colleges boost enrollment, retention, and revenue while giving students clear financial pathways to succeed. Welcome to the Conscious Millionaire Show. 3X each week - M / W / F Become an Ultra-Performer - Entrepreneurs Committed to The Top-1%. Revenues $250K to $50M? Sign up for complimentary Breakout Session with JV. Find out your #1 block keeping you from scaling faster, profiting more, and making your greatest impact. Schedule Your Breakthough Session Join Host JV Crum III, with 2 exits and over 75M revenues in his companies, he is the Ultra-Performer Coach for 6- to 8-figure owners ready to join the top 1% of Ultra-Performers. Season 12 of the award-winning Conscious Millionaire Show. World's #1 conscious business and performance podcast for foundeers and entrepreneurs who want to become Ultra-Performers. Access Conscious Millionaire Show Millions of Listeners in 190 countries. Inc Magazine "Top 13 Business Podcasts" with over 3,000 episodes and 100 million listeners world-wde. Listen 3X a week.
On this month's EM Quick Hits podcast: Deborah Schonfeld on the differential diagnosis and work up of pediatric urinary retention & acute transverse myelitis, Jesse McLaren on his Tryptic Approach to Occlusion MI Diagnosis, Matthew McArthur on recognition and management of post-dural puncture headache, Joseph Yasmeh on Med Mal Cases: Clenched fist injury, Brit Long on IV thrombolysis for minor strokes and Victoria Myers & Lauren Westafer on mentorship and what it means to be a physician leader... Please consider a donation to EM Cases to support high quality Free Open Access Medical Education here: https://emergencymedicinecases.com/donation/
Ben Criddle talks BYU sports every weekday from 2 to 6 pm.Today's Co-Hosts: Ben Criddle (@criddlebenjamin)Subscribe to the Cougar Sports with Ben Criddle podcast:Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-sports-with-ben-criddle/id99676
So, you're looking for a sponsor, or you've got one, and you don't know what to do next. How can you incorporate sponsorship into your YouTube videos to make sure that you are representing them well enough and that you're cutting a good enough deal so that they can be on your platform? Well, look no further… Today, Louie shows you all the tips and tricks that you can deploy to make sure that you are baking sponsorship in well enough into your show to get a deal in the first place or to do them justice. Want to get into podcasting but need a little push? Join our 3-day Podcasting event in Peterborough! – Get in touch for details! Use email: podcast@disruptivemedia.co.uk Episode Takeaways Choose sponsors that align with your podcast's audience and values. Create partnerships that resonate authentically with your listeners. Use logos, links, banners, and pop-ups in your episodes and descriptions to drive awareness without disrupting your content. Louie shares how. Strategically position sponsor messages and dedicated segments at moments of peak listener attention to maximize impact and the value you provide for sponsors. Share your audience analytics and total platform reach to demonstrate value to potential sponsors. For podcast only platforms, use dynamic ad insertion. BEST MOMENTS “Make it so that your promotion and your sales pitch to the audience doesn't come across as too forced or too contradicting to your podcasts vibe.” “Harness pop ups… the movement the it coming up will draw their attention, and people will see it a little bit clearer.” "Remember, this is your platform. You own it. It's your show. " “Think about that, the timeline and where the advert is. It has more value depending on where it goes.” EPISODE RESOURCES Previous episode on sponsorship - https://podcasts.apple.com/lb/podcast/the-secret-to-landing-your-first-sponsor/id1592722911?i=1000738203125 Analytics and demographics episode - https://podcasts.apple.com/lb/podcast/the-secrets-to-youtube-growth-ctr-retention/id1592722911?i=1000735125063 VALUABLE RESOURCES Website - https://disruptivemedia.co.uk Want to get into podcasting but need a little push? Join our 3-day Podcasting event in Peterborough! – Get in touch for details. Use email: podcast@disruptivemedia.co.uk ABOUT THE HOST Louie Rider https://www.linkedin.com/in/louie-rider1403/ CONNECT & CONTACT Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/disruptivemedia LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/disruptive-media-uk YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@disruptivemediauk Email: Podcast@disruptivemedia.co.uk
Most recruiting playbooks are either too vague to matter or too corporate to inspire. In this episode of Recruiting Conversations, I break down how to create a magnetic recruiting playbook; one that does more than document steps. It attracts the right talent, builds deep community, and creates retention that scales. We'll cover three powerful pillars: marketing that feels human, community that creates belonging, and retention that builds belief. This isn't theory. It's a rhythm that reinforces your leadership at every level. Episode Breakdown [00:00] Introduction – Why most playbooks fail and how to build one that magnetizes people to your team [01:00] What a Playbook Really Is – Not a document, but a lived rhythm that reflects the culture of your team [02:00] Part 1: Marketing That Connects Define your content pillars: What should you be known for? Build a cadence: Weekly posts, monthly updates, quarterly events Show your leadership: Let the market feel what it's like to be led by you Involve your team: Shared wins and team content multiply your message [03:30] Marketing Is Not About Going Viral – It's about being consistently visible with real value [04:30] Part 2: Community That Retains Outline rhythms of connection: Weekly calls, celebrations, shout-outs Systematize belonging: Notes, gifts, personal coaching Teach peer-to-peer support: Real community isn't top down, it's side to side [05:30] Community Has to Be Structured to Scale – Templates, calendars, and shared docs bring this to life [06:00] Part 3: Retention That Lasts Four keys: Clear expectations, consistent coaching, visible progress, emotional connection Define onboarding rhythms Track growth, give feedback, build relationship Retention isn't about comp or ops, it's about belief [07:00] The Gift of Documenting the Gaps – Writing your playbook reveals where you're winging it, and that's how you get better [07:30] Final Challenge Create three sections: Marketing, Community, Retention List five things you already do and five you want to start doing Build templates, assign owners, and create checklists over the next 30 days Key Takeaways A Playbook Isn't a PDF. It's a System That Lives and Breathes – Build rhythms, not just resources Marketing Should Be Personal and Predictable – Stop trying to go viral. Start being visible Community Doesn't Happen By Chance – It happens by design and weekly repetition Retention Is Built, Not Hoped For – It requires coaching, celebration, and belief Your Playbook Makes You Scalable – It moves your leadership from your head into the hands of others You don't need to build something flashy. You need to build something real, something that grows with you, attracts the right people, and keeps your team aligned. Want help building your own magnetic recruiting playbook? Subscribe to my weekly email at 4crecruiting.com or book a session at bookrichardnow.com. Let's turn your leadership into a system that multiplies.
If you've been in real estate for more than 5 minutes, you already know that recruitment can feel like a never ending headache. The revolving door, the job ads that go nowhere, the people who seem perfect on paper but last 3 months tops, it all adds up. And in property management, where expectations are high and the pace is relentless, it can wear even the most experienced business owners down.In this episode I chat with Katie Cotton who is Managing Director Recruit RE formerly of Ray White and has been a driving force behind strategic Recruitment, Recognition, and Retention initiatives that have strengthened the network. Katie has spent almost a decade inside real estate and another chunk of her career in tech, franchising and recruitment. She's seen the industry evolve and she understands why so many agencies are struggling to hire and keep good people.What I love most about Katie is that she doesn't sugarcoat the challenges, but she also doesn't accept that “this is just how it is.” She has a clear view of where recruitment is breaking down and what needs to shift if we want teams that are stable, aligned and actually happy to be where they work.This episode is a chance to rethink how we hire, what we value and the way we build cultures in a world where everyone wants different things and where the industry isn't always keeping up. “ We often get caught up trying to find the perfect skillset instead of the perfect person, and that's where recruitment keeps falling apart” -Katie CottonWe cover:Why hiring feels so exhausting right now in property management and the real reasons so many teams are burning outThe biggest mistake agencies make in job ads and why leaving out the salary turns great people away instantlyHow confusing, over the top job descriptions are scaring off the exact candidates who would actually thrive in the roleWhy the right attitude and energy can matter far more than ticking every technical skill boxThe growing gap between long time Property Managers and the newer generation stepping in, and how that divide shapes cultureThe leadership behaviours that push good people out, even when the business means wellWhy so many people leave real estate in January and what owners can do to prepare for itKylie's Resources:Property Management Growth School: https://courses.thatpropertymum.com.au/TPM-BDMSchool Digital Marketing School: https://courses.thatpropertymum.com.au/digitalschool That Property Mum Courses: https://www.thatpropertymum.com.au/courses/ The PM Accelerate Membership: https://courses.thatpropertymum.com.au/accelerate Book a Strategy Call with Kylie: https://calendly.com/kylie-tpm/coaching-call Kolmeo: https://kolmeo.com/ Find out about our Done for You Lead Generation - https://calendly.com/kylie-tpm/done-for-you-leads-discovery-call35 AI Prompts to...
#697 Want to build a team that sticks with you, performs at a high level, and actually loves coming to work? Samantha Irwin — owner of Kaizen Coaching and Consulting and longtime friend of the show — returns for a deep dive into the art and science of employee retention! In this episode hosted by Brien Gearin, she shares her journey from middle-school teacher to historic hotel owner to leadership coach, revealing the people-first systems she used to build a loyal, high-performing team in a town of just 650 residents. Samantha breaks down her three-part framework for attracting the right employees, training them well, and retaining them through appreciation and strong culture. Whether you're hiring your first contractor or growing a team, her strategies will help you create a workplace where great people stay and thrive! What we discuss with Samantha: + Samantha's hotel ownership origin + Attracting the right employees + Training with clear roadmaps + Retention through appreciation + Importance of company culture + Hiring for personality first + Onboarding with intentional structure + Incentives beyond money + Turning staff into thinkers + Leadership vs. boss mindset Thank you, Samantha! Check out Zaizen Coaching and Consulting at Zaizen.zone. Buy The Power of People Academy, Module 1: First Impressions. Follow Samantha on LinkedIn. Watch the video podcast of this episode! To get access to our FREE Business Training course go to MillionaireUniversity.com/training. And follow us on: Instagram Facebook Tik Tok Youtube Twitter To get exclusive offers mentioned in this episode and to support the show, visit millionaireuniversity.com/sponsors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ready to grow your clientele & revenue? Download "The 20 Client Generators" PDF now and get instant access to strategies that will fill your calendar with potential clients. No complicated tech, no lengthy processes—just real strategies that work. https://info.patrigsby.com/20-client-generators Do you want to stop chasing leads and start attracting them instead? Get Instant Access To The Weekly Client Machine For Just $5.00! https://patrigsby.com/weeklyclientmachine Get Your FREE Copy of Pat's Fitness Entrepreneur Handbook! https://patrigsby.com/feh --- The Truth About Retention: Building Strong Client Relationships In today's episode, Pat discusses the critical role of retention in business, particularly from his experience as a college baseball coach and business coach. He explains that retention is less about tethering clients to you and more about building strong connections through relationships and delivering results. Pat emphasizes that life circumstances may cause clients to pause their memberships, but maintaining a positive relationship ensures they are more likely to return. He advocates for prioritizing relationships and results over unbroken memberships to create long-term client loyalty and successful retention. 00:00 Introduction to Retention 00:11 Personal Experience with Retention 01:16 The Foundation of Retention: Relationships and Results 01:42 Client Lifetime Value vs. Unbroken Membership 02:15 Adapting to Changing Circumstances 03:10 Maintaining Long-Term Connections 05:14 Conclusion: Focus on Relationships and Results
How a 27-Year-Old Built 6 Gyms, a Statewide Equipment Company, and a New National Repair Service — with Colton BurtEp 199: Small Town Domination — How 27-Year-Old Gym Owner & Equipment Expert Colton Burt Built an Empire Across Rural Wisconsin Core Themes:Building profitable gyms in towns of 500–5,000 peopleHow to launch multiple locations with low overheadThe power of saying YES to opportunityHow the fitness equipment industry really worksGym Repair Now — the new service that's changing equipment repairs foreverContact Colton directly for equipment/repairs (details below)Most gym owners believe you need a huge city, big budgets, and prime real estate to grow a successful fitness business.But today's episode proves the exact opposite.Scott Carpenter sits down with 27-year-old gym owner and equipment operations expert, Colton Burt, who built:
Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupIn this episode, Nik Sharma (founder of Sharma Brands) returns to the pod to dig into how DTC brands should be thinking right now: simple, tested offers for Black Friday/Cyber Week, and how to turn those one‑time buyers into repeat customers.For DTC operators scaling from ~$50 M to $500 M:What makes a Black Friday offer work (hint: simple, tested, clear).Why retention after the sale is your leverage — and how to bake it into flows, creative and post‑purchase experience.The internal creative strategist role: why brands who won the recent platform updates had strong in‑house creative ideation, not just an agency doing the work.The “two‑layer strategy” to ads: first who, then why — and how that applies to landing pages, creatives and funnels.Why many brands still get tracking/events wrong on landing pages and why that kills scale.Who this is for: Founders, growth leads and performance marketers in DTC brands who are heading into Q4 and want to both hit a big seasonal number and build playbooks for 2025.What to steal:A plain‑text thank‑you email from the founder that goes out post‑purchase (low cost, high emotional return).Structure your Black Friday/Cyber Week offer now: test ahead, keep it simple, and communicate what's included vs not.Build the “creative strategist” role internally: someone whose job is crafting hooks, angles and formats for your brand (not just delegating to the agency).Timestamps00:00 Retention mindset after Black Friday02:00 Building simple and effective BFCM offers04:00 Why most Black Friday customers don't return06:00 Creative strategy and the Andromeda update08:00 Why brands need an internal creative strategist10:00 Going deeper on avatars and buyer psychology12:00 Marpipe and the importance of better DPAs14:00 Rethinking top-of-funnel in 202516:00 Cutting through the noise with creators and TikTok18:00 Pharmacy trends, GLP-1s, peptides, and affiliates20:00 Supplements, problem-solution marketing, and AI prompts22:00 How Nik uses AI for reporting and creative inputs24:00 Sharma Brands acquisition and team evolution26:00 Sleep optimization and Q4 habits28:00 Landing page fundamentals and data accuracyHashtags#dtcpodcast #niksharma #sharmabrands #ecommercegrowth #bfcm2025 #blackfridaystrategy #d2cpodcast #directtoconsumer #marketingstrategy #facebookads #retentionmarketing #creativestrategy #andromeda #paidmedia #landingpages #marpipe #tiktokmarketing Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupAdvertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertiseWork with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouseFollow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletterWatch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video
Matt Bergmann, Owner & CEO of Laketown Electric Corporation, a $50M+ merit-shop contractor known for complex commercial and industrial projects and a people-first culture with … Read more The post Culture as a Competitive Advantage: How a Merit-Shop Contractor Built a $50M+ Powerhouse with 98% Retention appeared first on Top Entrepreneurs Podcast | Enterprise Podcast Network.
Meet Tommy. Tommy has a YouTube channel dedicated to helping Americans retire in France. Tommy's done an incredible job attracting nearly 30,000 subscribers and 2 million views on his channel, but he needed help dialing in his product offer. Tommy is a member of The Lab, my invitation-only membership community for 6-and-7-figure creators. He scheduled a coaching call with me to work out how he can take his growing audience and design his product offers to both serve that audience and bring in serious revenue. This is that coaching call, where we discuss how his membership, cohort-based courses, and retreats to France all work together. → Join the Signature Product Bootcamp → Join The Lab Full transcript and show notes Tommy's Website / YouTube *** TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Intro to American to France (06:11) Membership Focus: Retreats or Access? (08:03) Retreats and Membership Marketing Strategy (11:32) Membership Value and Retention (17:18) Time-Bound Experiences & Memberships (20:38) Strategic Event Video Planning (23:04) Ticket Sales Strategies (27:24) How Bootcamps Tie In (28:36) Community Engagement and Membership Disconnect (34:24) Selling Evergreen Memberships (36:22) The Power of Community (40:25) Building Community in New Locations *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #260: Detailed Breakdown: Our First Offline Event (And What We'll Do Differently Next Time) → #271: Coaching: Helping a Lab member design their product suite | Hot Seat with John McBride *** ASK CREATOR SCIENCE → Submit your question here *** WHEN YOU'RE READY
The morning after Airbase's sale closed, Aneal Vallurupalli woke up to a very different org chart. Before the deal, roughly a third to almost half of the company reported to him, including onboarding, professional services, account management, customer success, and financial services revenue, he tells us. The day after, those teams rolled into the acquirer and “I have my EA reporting to me. And that was it,” he tells us. It left him thinking, “wait a minute… I'm not making any decisions anymore,” he tells us.That jolt became a pivot point. Rather than chase another title, he went looking for roles where finance could architect the whole engine—customer journey included. It's the same instinct that once led him to peel back Airbase's retention problem: starting with GRR by segment, then listening to Gong calls and mapping every step from contract signature to renewal, he tells us. Retention, he concluded, is almost never a single-issue story.Today, four weeks into his CFO role at Drata, it already feels like “the third quarter operating” there, he tells us. He talks about “ruthless prioritization” as a muscle first trained in high-level tennis and investment banking, where time, not money, was the real constraint.Now he wants finance to be the company's best “so what” team—not just reporting variances, but offering an informed view on what to do next. Even with AI, he is wary of “tool proliferation” and scattered agents, arguing that every business must choose deliberately what sits centrally on its data and what remains at the edge.
If great patients are still slipping away, this episode is your retention tune-up. In Part 2, we explore five more hidden mistakes that push people away—and simple ways to create connection, confidence, and community that keep them coming back.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why is youth training the fastest-growing segment in fitness?Today on "Run a Profitable Gym," Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper sits down with youth performance expert Bill Parisi to analyze the explosion in sports and fitness training for kids.Over the last 35 years, Bill has built a network of more than 100 Parisi Speed Schools, with most locations averaging $20,000 in revenue per month while operating only four to five hours per day.In this episode, Bill explains how NIL (name, image and likeness) deals have motivated parents to invest in training: Top college quarterbacks now earn seven figures!He also discusses the pros and cons of early specialization for young athletes and compares average metrics from youth-training gyms and the fitness industry as a whole.To help gym owners capitalize on demographic shifts, Bill and Chris share practical strategies: how to use events to generate referrals, how to balance seasonal variations in retention, and how to hire and keep quality coaches. Check out this episode to discover how youth training could boost your gym's revenue and help you create a greater impact in your community.To get more gym business data on demographics, rates and revenue, use the link below to download Two-Brain's 2025 “State of the Industry” report.Links"State of the Industry"Gym Owners UnitedBook a Call1:01 - Why youth training is exploding12:04 - The early specialization debate19:45 - Youth training metrics33:28 - Retention in a seasonal business37:41 - Hiring & retaining quality coaches
Send us a textIn this October Masterclass, Noah Wickham and Kevin Sanderson from My Amazon Guy dives deep into Amazon selling strategies, offering expert insights into improving Amazon SEO, PPC optimization, listing optimization, and effective marketing tactics for 2025. Learn how to boost your Amazon business, implement powerful Amazon FBA strategies, and optimize your product listings with Amazon A+ Content. Whether you're a beginner or experienced seller, Steven explains how to enhance your Amazon ranking and manage PPC campaigns efficiently.Watch this session to discover advanced Amazon advertising strategies, including retargeting, Google Shopping, and email marketing tactics for sales growth. This video also breaks down key methods to ensure your Amazon product images and alt text are perfectly optimized to boost your visibility and click-through rate (CTR). Plus, get tips on using User Generated Content (UGC) and influencer marketing to elevate your brand presence on Meta, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.#AmazonFBA #AmazonPPC #AmazonSEO #MyAmazonGuy #amazonsellingtips ------------------------------------------------Want free resources? Dowload our Free Amazon guides here:Q4 Selling Playbook: https://bit.ly/46Wqkm3 2025 Ecommerce Holiday Playbook: https://bit.ly/4hbygov Amazon PPC Guide 2025: https://bit.ly/4lF0OYX Ecommerce Holiday Playbook: https://bit.ly/4hbygovAmazon Crisis Kit: https://bit.ly/4maWHn0Amazon SEO Toolkit: https://bit.ly/457zjSl00:00 – Start of webinar01:15 – Why you should build your own store (avoiding Amazon dependency)04:30 – Importance of owning customer data07:00 – The cost of selling on Amazon: Fees and margins10:00 – Why Q4 is a great time to launch a direct-to-consumer brand12:30 – How to build a strategy that works for both Amazon and direct-to-consumer15:00 – Creative refresh for your brand and listings18:00 – The importance of UGC (user-generated content) in advertising21:00 – Effective paid media framework: Top, middle, and bottom funnel strategies24:00 – Using Amazon's AMC to gain a head start in direct-to-consumer advertising28:00 – Email and SMS marketing strategies32:00 – Website optimization for conversion35:00 – Best practices for listing optimization38:00 – Using SEO and copywriting for better product listings42:00 – Brand story and A+ content for building trust and conversions46:00 – Technical performance: Site speed and reducing friction50:00 – Inventory management and fulfillment strategies54:00 – Tracking attribution setup and tools57:00 – Retention strategies: Customer lifetime value and remarketing60:00 – Providing a customer experience that beats Amazon63:00 – January reset: Post-Q4 strategy and remarketing67:00 – Q&A session1:15:00 – Listing optimization Q&A1:28:00 – Review of a listing: Analysis and optimization tips1:35:00 – Final Q&A on listing and optimization questions-------------------------------------------------Follow us:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28605816/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenpopemag/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/myamazonguys/Twitter: https://twitter.com/myamazonguySubscribe to the My Amazon Guy podcast: https://podcast.myamazonguy.comApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-amazon-guy/id1501974229Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4A5ASHGGfr6s4wWNQIqyVwSupport the show
In today's episode of iGaming Daily, SBC Media Manager Charlie Horner is joined by Optimove's Ben Tepfer, Director of Product Marketing, as the duo discuss how gamification is evolving as a powerful player retention tool and what operators should focus on heading into 2026.Tune in to today's episode to find out:How operators can turn longer player sessions into genuine loyaltyHow to identify which gamification tools work best for different player segmentsHow Optimove develops its library of more than 40 gamification gamesWhy real-time triggers are essential for effective gamificationHow gamification insights can shape wider CRM and marketing strategiesRelevant articles:https://www.optimove.com/resources/blog/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-gamificationhttps://www.optimove.com/resources/blog/ai-gamification-next-level-player-engagementhttps://www.optimove.com/resources/blog/gamification-strategies-to-drive-player-engagementHost: Charlie HornerGuest: Ben TepferProducer: Anaya McDonaldEditor: Anaya McDonaldiGaming Daily is also now on TikTok. Make sure to follow us at iGaming Daily Podcast (@igaming_daily_podcast) | TikTok for bite-size clips from your favourite podcast. Finally, remember to check out Optimove at https://hubs.la/Q02gLC5L0 or go to Optimove.com/sbc to get your first month free when buying the industry's leading customer-loyalty service.
The automated "Great job, team!" email blasted to 47 people at 4:37 PM on a Friday isn't authentic appreciation. Neither is the generic gift basket ordered by someone in HR who's never met your top performer, or the corporate recognition program where nobody actually feels valued. These things look like recognition, but your people know the truth: leadership is outsourcing one of the most human tasks—seeing the people who show up every day and make things happen. And your teams feel the disconnect. As Jeb Blount Jr. recently said on the Sales Gravy Podcast: "Don't make your appreciation to customers, to your team, to yourself a completely outsourced behavior. It will be cheap, and everyone will know it." Authentic appreciation can't be delegated to your human resources team or automated through your CRM. And that's exactly why it works. Where Sales Leaders Go Wrong with Recognition Most sales leaders fall into one of two camps. Camp one believes they don't have time for appreciation because they're focused on results. The numbers are what matter. Recognition is soft skills territory—nice to have, but not essential. Camp two wants to show appreciation but defaults to the path of least resistance. They sign the company card. Approve the budget for the year-end gift. Forward the congratulatory email from the VP. Box checked. Both camps are missing what actually moves people. Recognition that matters requires you to see the work that often goes unseen. It demands that you pause long enough to notice not just the outcome, but the effort behind it. That's not something you can outsource. Why Small Moments Compound Into Big Results There's a concept in professional development about making 1% improvements every single day. Over 365 days, those tiny adjustments compound into exponential growth. Authentic appreciation works the same way. You don't need a massive recognition program. You don't need elaborate gestures or expensive rewards. You need consistency in the small moments that tell your team: I see you, and what you are doing matters. Consider the sales rep who stays late to prep for tomorrow's presentation. The account manager who defuses a client issue before it reaches your desk. The teammate who mentors the new hire without being asked. These moments happen every day, and most leaders miss them entirely because they're scanning for the big wins. But your team isn't just looking for recognition when they close the monster deal. They're looking for it on Tuesday afternoon when they're grinding through their 50th prospecting call. They're looking for it when they've had a brutal week and still show up ready to perform. Small acts of authentic appreciation in these moments build trust faster than any annual award ceremony ever will. 3 Elements of Authentic Appreciation Authentic appreciation has three non-negotiable elements. Specific means recognizing exactly what someone did and why it mattered. Not "great work on that account," but "the way you handled that objection about pricing showed real creativity—you reframed value instead of dropping price, and that's exactly the approach we need more of." Timely means you don't wait for the quarterly review or the annual celebration. You recognize the effort when it happens, while it's still fresh and meaningful. Personal means you deliver it in a way that resonates with that individual. Some people want public recognition. Others prefer a quiet conversation. Some treasure a handwritten note. Others just want to hear it directly from you in the moment. Here's what this looks like in real leadership: One sales leader makes it a practice to handwrite notes to team members. Not emails. Not Slack messages. Actual pen-on-paper notes. Some are two sentences. Some are three paragraphs. But everyone is specific to something that person did and why it mattered to the team. Is it efficient? No. Does it scale? Not really. But those notes end up on office walls, in desk drawers, and tucked into planners. Years later, people still have them. That's the difference between authentic and outsourced. Integrate Authentic Appreciation Into How You Already Work Most sales leaders know they should show more appreciation. They feel guilty about it. They add it to their to-do list. And then the day gets away from them. The problem is treating appreciation as an extra task instead of integrating it into what you're already doing. You're already having one-on-ones. Reviewing deals. Walking the floor or jumping on calls. The question isn't whether you have time—it's whether you're paying attention in those moments. When reviewing pipeline, don't just look at the numbers. Notice the effort. "I see you've been hitting activity goals consistently for six weeks straight. That discipline is setting you up for a strong Q1." When someone sends an update email, reply with more than “thanks.” Take 30 seconds to acknowledge what they did: "This breakdown made my job easier. I didn't have to dig for answers. That kind of communication makes our team more efficient." These aren't grand gestures. They're small moments of paying attention and responding like a human being who notices when people do good work. Building a Culture Where Authentic Appreciation Flows Both Ways The best team cultures don't just flow from leader to team member; they flow in every direction. When you model authentic appreciation, your team starts doing it for each other. They notice the work that happens behind the scenes. They start going the extra mile. The culture shifts from everyone waiting for the leader's approval to everyone building each other up. One practice that works: create space in team meetings for peer recognition. Not forced or formal—just an open moment where anyone can call out something they appreciated from a teammate that week. Keep it optional. Keep it genuine. You'll be surprised how quickly it becomes part of your team's rhythm. Additionally, most high performers are terrible at acknowledging their own progress. They hit a goal and immediately move to the next one without pausing to appreciate what they just accomplished. In coaching sessions, start by asking: “What's a win from this week?” Make them say it out loud. Make them acknowledge their own growth. That internal recognition builds resilience and momentum that external praise alone can't create. What Happens When You Get This Right When you stop outsourcing appreciation and start building it into your leadership, everything shifts. Retention improves. People stay where they feel seen and valued. They leave when they feel invisible. Team energy changes. Appreciated people bring more to the table. They take ownership. They go the extra mile because they want to. Difficult conversations get easier. When someone knows you genuinely care about their success, they're more open to feedback and coaching. Culture becomes magnetic. Top performers want to work on teams where their contributions matter. They can feel the difference between authentic and transactional leadership from a mile away. Take Action This Week Stop waiting for the perfect appreciation program or the right company initiative. Start with what you can control right now. This week: Write one handwritten note to someone on your team. Be specific about what they did and why it mattered. In your next one-on-one, ask “What's a win from this week?” and let them acknowledge their own progress. Catch someone doing something right—however small—and tell them in the moment. End your next team meeting with clear recognition for one person. Not generic praise, tell them exactly what you noticed and why it mattered. This month: Create a recognition moment in every team meeting. Make it specific, not generic. Ask yourself: What recognition do I wish I were receiving? Then give that to someone else. When reviewing pipeline or performance, comment on the effort, not just the outcome. Stop Outsourcing What Should Be Human The work you do as a sales leader matters. The people on your team matter. And the small moments where you choose to show up and recognize their effort—those matter most of all. Your team isn't waiting for the next corporate initiative or the annual awards ceremony. They're waiting for you to notice. They're waiting for you to care enough to say something about the work they're doing right now. Stop outsourcing what should be human. Lead with authentic appreciation today, and watch your team thrive. Want to turn recognition into motivation that sticks? Our Sales Gravy University course, 4 Keys to Keeping Your Sales Team Motivated When Everything Hits the Fan, gives you the proven framework to transform appreciation into performance. Learn how to build a sales culture where people feel seen, valued, and driven — even in hard times.
Podcast rankings look glossy on the surface, but what do they actually mean for your growth, your revenue, and your long-term visibility?In this data-rich episode of As It Relates to Podcasting, Simona Costantini is joined by Megan Dougherty, creator of the State of Business Podcasting Report, and Ana Xavier, founder of The Podcast Space, to unpack the real truth behind podcast rankings, retention, and sustainable growth heading into 2026.Together, they dissect what the Top 100 Business Podcasts data truly reveals about churn, completion rates, publishing frequency, discoverability, video adoption, guest strategy, and why so many shows rise fast and disappear just as quickly. They also explore how algorithms actually interpret engagement, how AI is changing the backend of podcast strategy, and why human connection is now the most powerful growth metric of all.If you want to stop chasing vanity metrics and start building a podcast that compounds in authority, audience, and income, this conversation gives you the roadmap behind the rankings.Inside this episode:What podcast rankings really measure and what they completely ignoreWhy nearly half of top-ranked business podcasts rotate off the charts each yearThe difference between downloads, completion rate, and real listener qualityHow retention directly shapes algorithmic discoverabilityThe most common publishing frequency among the Top 100 showsHow short-form daily publishing fits into long-term strategyWhy guest strategy now functions as a growth engine, not just contentHow cross-promotion and relationships drive measurable ROIThe hidden truth about show notes, SEO, and discoverabilityWhat the data reveals about video podcasting adoptionWhere AI supports podcasting and where it quietly erodes trustWhy humanity now outperforms polish in listener connectionThe real factors behind scalable podcast growth in 2026✨ Free Resource: Download my Podcast Launch Blueprint, the 5-step system to plan, record, and launch a professional show in just 8 weeks.https://voltproductions.co/podcast-launch-blueprint-2025 Launch Your Podcast in 8 Weeks Course: https://voltproductions.co/launch-podcast-8-weeks-course-offer State of Business Podcasting Report:https://podcastingforbusiness.com/the-state-of-business-podcasting-report/ #PodcastRankings #PodcastRetention #PodcastGrowth2026 #PodcastAnalytics #PodcastMetrics #PodcastStatistics #PodcastDiscoverability #PodcastSEO #BusinessPodcasting #PodcastTrends #PodcastMarketingData #VideoPodcasting #PodcastGuestStrategy #AsItRelatesToPodcasting #SimonaCostantini #VOLTProductions #PodcastROI #PodcastChurn #PodcastResearchLearn about:00:00 Why podcast growth opinions often conflict with real data02:00 What the State of Business Podcasting Report actually measures04:00 The surprising churn rate behind Top 100 podcasts07:00 Publishing frequency trends among high-ranking shows09:00 Completion rate vs download volume as quality signals11:00 Subscriber growth and discoverability indicators13:30 Guest strategy as a long-term growth lever15:30 Cross-promotion, referrals, and relationship-driven ROI18:00 Show notes performance and SEO...
Have you ever thought about starting a product-based business? Maybe you've wondered what it would take to get a product into stores, scale it into a household name, or if you should add products to your existing service-based business.Today I'm sitting down with Madison Page, who has helped brands go from a few thousand dollars a month on Etsy all the way to landing in major retailers like Anthropologie. Madi breaks down the real difference between having a small business versus building an actual brand, startup costs, manufacturing versus handmade, and why some product businesses scale infinitely while others plateau.We're diving into case studies like Coach (who 4x'd their stock price in two years), Liquid Death, and Scrub Daddy. Madi also shares why she's seen clients with 100,000 followers struggle to make $3,000 a month while others with 2,500 followers consistently pull in $10,000 to $15,000 monthly. The difference? Community over audience. 00:44 Introduction05:30 Understanding Product-Based Business Tiers09:56 Aligning Actions with Business Goals15:26 Startup Costs and Pre-Revenue Realities21:17 The Importance of Branding and Messaging25:02 Differentiating Your Product in the Market33:05 The Role of Marketing in Product Success36:17 The Importance of Brand in Product and Service37:20 Building Community vs. Audience39:09 The Power of Retention and Community49:09 Scaling and Marketing StrategiesConnect with Madi: InstagramPodcastTo join the Ambitious Network for free, click HERE. To connect with Kate on Instagram, click HERE. To apply for ITI, click HERE.To submit a question to be answered on the podcast, click HERE.
https://www.laurenlappin.com.au/service-cost-calculator (*No Discount Code Required at Checkout*).In this week's episode Lauren breaks down the 6 mistakes that could be killing your Salon profit margin. The 6 Mistakes That Quietly Kill Your Profit Margin:Undercharging for your products and services. (04:45).Discounts, value-adds and loyalty systems that eat into your profit. (08:00).Allowing too much time for your services. Remember, time is money! (13:00).Too many subscriptions, systems and tools. (21:00).Retention of Team Members that aren't performing, and aren't profitable. (25:00).Overdelivering out of fear. (28:00).https://www.laurenlappin.com.au/service-cost-calculator (*No Discount Code Required at Checkout*).....Rate and Review the Show in Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-lash-business-lounge/id1609510128Rate the Show in Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0xvJ8MNZM9cbjYBGcMDtb8?si=b23764e4d0ed4b59Lauren on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenlappin_Allure's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allure_lashbeautybar....This Episode was Recorded and Produced by Josh Liston at JCAL Media Group - https://www.jcaldigital.org/podcast-editing
This podcast is brought to you by Outcomes Rocket, your exclusive healthcare marketing agency. Learn how to accelerate your growth by going to outcomesrocket.com Retention is the new recruitment in healthcare, and it starts before day one. In this episode, Kyle M.K., Senior Talent Strategy Advisor at Indeed, explores how recruitment, burnout, and belonging are evolving in healthcare workplaces. Drawing on data from 4.5 million monthly healthcare job seekers and Indeed's Pulse of Healthcare study, he reveals that the leading causes of burnout stem from feeling overworked and underappreciated, particularly by managers. Kyle underscores that empathy, appreciation, and transparent leadership behaviors are essential for retention and for creating healthier organizational cultures. Ultimately, he reframes healthcare organizations as communities of people connected by shared purpose rather than mere productivity metrics. Tune in and discover how empathy, transparency, and belonging can transform the healthcare culture and enhance employee retention! Resources Connect with and follow Kyle M.K. on LinkedIn. Follow Indeed on LinkedIn. Visit Indeed's website. Get a copy of Kyle's book, The Economics of Emotion, here. Read Indeed's Pulse of Healthcare 2024 here. Read Indeed's Pulse of Healthcare 2025 here.
Most network marketers spend all their time trying to acquire customers and almost no time doing the one thing that actually keeps them: showing appreciation. Retention is the foundation of residual income, and in this episode, Todd Falcone reveals the single most effective retention strategy almost nobody uses. This simple act creates a massive separation between you and your competition and dramatically increases the likelihood that a customer becomes a long-term customer. Watch or read the full episode here: https://ToddFalcone.com/episode347 Inside this episode: • The biggest mistake in customer retention • Why most customers never feel appreciated • The power of this super easy action • How to make customers feel valued and connected • Why this one habit dramatically increases retention • How retention is the foundation of residual income Black Friday Sale! Receive 30% off any Todd Falcone training program with the code THANKFUL. Sale ends November 30, 2025. https://www.toddfalcone.com/products-list/collections/courses If you are ready to stop hesitating and start building with confidence, this video will give you the clarity and direction you need.
In this Best of 2025 episode, David Alemian discusses boosting hospital profits & mastering talent retention for financial & operational excellence.
Send us a MessageIn this episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff explores the role of the medical staff in becoming the provider of choice through cultural transformation. She emphasizes that while medical staff engagement is crucial, the primary focus should be on creating systems that enhance the providers, staff, and patient experiences. By addressing workplace culture and improving communication, hospitals can create a positive environment that benefits both providers and patients. Sue outlines Capstone's approach to guiding hospitals through this transformation, highlighting the need for a structured framework that allows providers to focus on patient care without the burden of systemic dysfunction.Cultural transformation enhances the provider experience.Providers and patients benefit significantly from cultural changes.A positive work environment leads to better patient care.Retention rates improve with a positive culture.Word of mouth among providers can attract talent.Capstone provides a structured approach to transformation.We're stepping forward in a bigger way—growing our team of rural healthcare experts, growing our capabilities by adding a strategic planning division … all of this so we can expand our ability to help even more rural hospitals and other small healthcare organizations in 2026. … We'd love to explore how we can support your organization in being the provider- and employer-of-choice so you can keep care local and margins strong! Learn more at CaptoneLeadership.netHi! I'm Sue Tetzlaff. I'm a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.For decades, I've worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I've learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It's the hardest thing, and it determines everything.When you're ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:1. Listen to the Culture Change RX PodcastEvery week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy. 2. Subscribe to our Email NewsletterGet practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won't find on the podcast.
Managing Made Simple for Team Leaders & Small Business Owners
We all know the saying: People don't leave companies, they leave managers. So, if I'm the biggest factor causing turnover, shouldn't I be the biggest factor in retention?What if I became the manager people *want* to work for?In today's episode, I'm digging into why this intentionality is non-negotiable right now. Being that leader creates resilience, innovation, and psychological safety, but getting there isn't easy, especially when the workplace feels like a pressure cooker. I challenge you to figure out how you want to show up, and more importantly, how you plan to stay consistent even on your worst day.Looking for support for yourself of your team? I've got you covered.Explore manager training, leaders keynotes & offsites, and 1:1 advisory, or my 90-Day-COO program for business owners who want simple systems that actually work. I help teams build clarity, accountability, and momentum through practical tools and research-backed strategies that make managing easier. Get all the details at: www.liagarvin.comor reach out at hello@liagarvin.com
Let's be honest – the occlusion after Aligner cases can be a little ‘off' (even after fixed appliances!) How do you know if your patient's occlusion after aligner treatment is acceptable or risky? What practical guidelines can general dentists follow to manage occlusion when orthodontic results aren't textbook-perfect? Jaz and Dr. Jesper Hatt explore the most common challenges dentists face, from ClinCheck errors and digital setup pitfalls to balancing aesthetics with functional occlusion. They also discuss key strategies to help you evaluate, guide, and optimize occlusion in your patients, because understanding what is acceptable and what needs intervention can make all the difference in long-term treatment stability and patient satisfaction. https://youtu.be/e74lUbyTCaA Watch PDP250 on YouTube Protrusive Dental Pearl: Harmony and Occlusal Compatibility Always ensure restorative anatomy suits the patient's natural occlusal scheme and age-related wear. If opposing teeth are flat and amalgam-filled, polished cuspal anatomy will be incompatible — flatten as needed to conform. Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below! Key Takeaways Common mistakes in ClinCheck planning often stem from occlusion issues. Effective communication and documentation are crucial in clinical support. Occlusion must be set correctly to ensure successful treatment outcomes. Understanding the patient’s profile is essential for effective orthodontics. Collaboration between GPs and orthodontists can enhance patient care. Retention of orthodontic results is a lifelong commitment. Aesthetic goals must align with functional occlusion in treatment planning. Informed consent is critical when discussing potential surgical interventions. The tongue plays a crucial role in orthodontic outcomes. Spacing cases should often be approached as restorative cases. Aligners can achieve precise spacing more effectively than fixed appliances. Enamel adjustments may be necessary for optimal occlusion post-treatment. Retention strategies must be tailored to individual patient needs. Case assessment is vital for determining treatment complexity. Highlights of this episode: 00:00 Teaser 00:59 Intro 02:53 Pearl – Harmony and Occlusal Compatibility 05:57 Dr. Jesper Hatt Introduction 07:34 Clinical Support Systems 10:18 Occlusion and Aligner Therapy 20:41 Bite Recording Considerations 25:32 Collaborative Approach in Orthodontics 30:31 Occlusal Goals vs. Aesthetic Goals 31:42 Midroll 35:03 Occlusal Goals vs. Aesthetic Goals 35:25 Challenges with Spacing Cases 42:19 Occlusion Checkpoints After Aligners 50:17 Considerations for Retention 54:55 Case Assessment and Treatment Planning 58:14 Key Lessons and Final Thoughts 01:00:19 Interconnectedness of Body and Teeth 01:02:48 Resources for Dentists and Case Support 01:04:40 Outro Free Aligner Case Support!Send your patient's case number and get a full assessment in 24 hours—easy, moderate, complex, or referral. Plus, access our 52-point planning protocol and 2-min photo course. No uploads, no cost. [Get Free Access Now] Learn more at alignerservice.com If you enjoyed this episode, don't miss: Do's and Don'ts of Aligners [STRAIGHTPRIL] – PDP071 #PDPMainEpisodes #OcclusionTMDandSplints #OrthoRestorative This episode is eligible for 1 CE credit via the quiz on Protrusive Guidance. This episode meets GDC Outcomes A and C. AGD Subject Code: 370 ORTHODONTICS (Functional orthodontic therapy) Aim: To provide general dentists with practical guidance for managing occlusion in aligner therapy, from bite capture to retention, including common pitfalls, functional considerations, and case selection. Dentists will be able to – Identify common errors in digital bite capture and occlusion setup. Understand the impact of anterior inclination and mandibular movement patterns on occlusal stability. Plan retention strategies appropriate for aligner and restorative cases. Click below for full episode transcript: Teaser: The one thing that we always check initially is the occlusion set correct by the aligner company. Because if the occlusion is not set correctly, everything else just doesn't matter because the teeth will move, but into a wrong position because the occlusion is off from the beginning. I don't know about you, but if half the orthodontists are afraid of controlling the root movements in extraction cases, as a GP, I would be terrified. Teaser:I don’t care if you just move from premolar to premolar or all the teeth. Orthodontics is orthodontics, so you will affect all the teeth during the treatment. The question’s just how much. Imagine going to a football stadium. The orthodontist will be able to find the football stadium. If it’s a reasonable orthodontist, he’ll be able to find the section you’re going to sit in, and if he’s really, really, really good, he will be able to find the row that you’re going to sit in, but the exact spot where you are going to sit… he will never, ever be able to find that with orthodontics. Jaz’s Introduction: Hello, Protruserati. I’m Jaz Gulati. Welcome back to your favorite dental podcast. I’m joined today by our guest, Dr. Jesper Hatt. All this dentist does is help other dentists with their treatment plans for aligners. From speaking to him, I gather that he’s no longer practicing clinically and is full-time clinical support for colleagues for their aligner cases. So there’s a lot we can learn from someone who day in day out has to do so much treatment planning and speaking to GDPs about their cases, how they’re tracking, how they’re not tracking, complications, and then years of seeing again, okay, how well did that first set of aligners actually perform? What is predictable and what isn’t? And as well as asking what are the most common errors we make on our ClinChecks or treatment plan softwares. I really wanted to probe in further. I really want to ask him about clinical guidelines for occlusion after ortho. Sometimes we treat a case and whilst the aesthetics of that aligner case is beautiful, the occlusion is sometimes not as good. So let’s talk about what that actually means. What is a not-good occlusion? What is a good occlusion? And just to offer some guidelines for practitioners to follow because guess what? No orthodontist in the world is gonna ever get the occlusion correct through ortho. Therefore, we as GPs are never gonna get a perfect textbook occlusion, but we need to understand what is acceptable and what is a good guideline to follow. That’s exactly what we’ll present to you in this episode today. Dental PearlNow, this is a CE slash CPD eligible episode and as our main PDP episode, I’ll give you a Protrusive Dental Pearl. Today’s pearl is very much relevant to the theme of orthodontics and occlusion we’re discussing today, and it’s probably a pearl I’ve given to you already in the past somewhere down the line, but it’s so important and so key. I really want to just emphasize on it again. In fact, a colleague messaged me recently and it reminded me of this concept I’m about to explain. She sent me an image of a resin bonded bridge she did, which had failed. It was a lower incisor, and just a few days after bonding, it failed. And so this dentist is feeling a bit embarrassed and wanted my advice. Now, by the way, guys, if you message me for advice on Instagram, on Facebook, or something like that, it’s very hit and miss. Like my priorities in life are family, health, and everything that happens on Protrusive Guidance. Our network. If you message me outside that network, I may not see it. The team might, but I may not see it. It’s the only way that I can really maintain control and calm in my life. The reason for saying this, I don’t want anyone to be offended. I’m not ignoring anyone. It’s just the volume of messages I get year on year, they’re astronomical. And I don’t mind if you nudge me. If you messaged me something weeks or months ago and I haven’t replied, I probably haven’t seen it. Please do nudge me. And the best place to catch me on is Protrusive Guidance. If you DM me on Protrusive Guidance, home of the nicest and geekiest dentists in the world, that’s the only platform I will log in daily. That’s our baby, our community. Anyway, so I caught this Facebook message and it was up to me to help this colleague. And one observation I made is that the lower teeth were all worn. The upper teeth were really worn, but this resin bonded bridge pontic, it just looked like a perfect tooth. The patient was something like 77 or 80. So it really made me think that, okay, why are we putting something that looks like a 25-year-old’s tooth in a 77-year-old? But even forgetting age and stuff, you have to look at the adjacent teeth in the arch. Is your restoration harmonious with the other teeth in the arch, and of course is the restoration harmonious with what’s opposing it? Because it’s just not compatible. So part one of this pearl is make sure any restoration you do, whether it’s direct or indirect, is harmonious with the patient’s arch and with the opposing teeth and with their occlusal scheme. Because otherwise, if you get rubber dam on and you give your 75-year-old patient beautiful composite resin, it’s got all that cuspal fissure pattern and anatomy, and you take that rubber dam off and you notice that all the other teeth are flat and the opposing teeth are flat amalgams, guess what? You’re gonna be making your composite flat, whether you like it or not. You created a restoration that’s proud, right? That’s why you did not conform to the patient’s own arch or existing anatomical scheme. So the part B of this is the thing that I get very excited to talk about, right? So sometimes you have a worn dentition, but then you have one tooth that’s not worn at all. It’s like that in-standing lateral incisor, right? Think of an upper lateral incisor that’s a bit in-standing, and you see some wear on all the incisors, but that lateral incisor does not have any wear in it because it was never in the firing line. It was never in function. It was never in parafunction. Now, if you give this patient aligners or fixed appliances, you’re doing ortho and you’re now going to align this lateral incisor. So it’s now gonna eventually get into occlusion and it will be in the functional and parafunctional pathways of this patient. Do you really think you can just leave that incisor be? No. It’s not gonna be compatible with the adjacent teeth. It’s not going to be compatible with the opposing tooth and the occlusal scheme. So guess what? You have to get your bur out or your Sof-Lex disc out, and you have to bake in some years into that tooth. Or you have to build up all the other teeth if appropriate for that patient. You’ve just gotta think about it. And I hope that makes sense so you can stay out of trouble. You’re not gonna get chipping and you can consent your patient appropriately for enamel adjustment, which is something that we do talk about in this episode. I think you’re in for an absolute cracker. I hope you enjoy. I’ll catch you in the outro. Main Episode: Doctor Jesper Hatt, thank you so much for coming to Protrusive Dental Podcast. We met in Scandinavia, in Copenhagen. You delivered this wonderful lecture and it was so nice to connect with you then and to finally have you on the show. Tell us, how are you, where in the world are you, and tell us about yourself. [Jesper] Well, thank you for the invitation, first of all. Well, I’m a dentist. I used to practice in Denmark since I originally come from Denmark. My mother’s from Germany, and now I live in Switzerland and have stopped practicing dentistry since 2018. Now I only do consulting work and I help doctors around the world with making their aligner business successful. [Jaz] And this is like probably clinical advice, but also like strategic advice and positioning and that kinda stuff. Probably the whole shebang, right? [Jesper] Yeah. I mean, I have a team around me, so my wife’s a dentist as well, and I would say she’s the expert in Europe on clear aligners. She’s been working for, first of all, our practice. She’s a dentist too. She worked with me in the practice. We practiced together for 10 years. Then she became a clinical advisor for Allion Tech with responsibility for clinical support of Scandinavia. She was headhunted to ClearCorrect, worked in Basel while I was doing more and more consulting stuff in Denmark. So she was traveling back and forth, and I considered this to be a little bit challenging for our family. So I asked her, well, why don’t we just relocate to Switzerland since ClearCorrect is located there? And sure we did. And after two years she told me, I think clinical support, it’s okay. And I like to train the teams, but I’d really like to do more than that because she found out that doctors, they were able to book a spot sometime in the future, let’s say two weeks out in the future at a time that suited the doctors… no, not the doctors, ClearCorrect. Or Invisalign or whatever clear aligner company you use. So as a doctor, you’re able to block the spot and at that time you can have your 30 minutes one-on-one online with a clinical expert. And she said it’s always between the patients or administrative stuff. So they’re not really focused on their ClearCorrect or clear aligner patient. And so they forget half of what I tell them. I can see it in the setups they do. They end up having to call me again. It doesn’t work like that. I would like to help them. [Jaz] It’s a clunky pathway of mentorship. [Jesper] Yes. And so she wanted to change the way clinical support was built up. So we do it differently. We do it only in writing so people can remember what we are telling them. They can always go back in the note and see what’s been going on, what was the advice we gave them, and we offer this co-creation support where we take over most of the treatment planning of the ClearCorrect or Clear Aligner or Spark or Invisalign or Angel Aligner treatment planning. So we do all the digital planning for the doctor, deliver what we think would be right for the patient based on the feedback we initially got from the doctor. And then the doctor can come back and say, well, I’d like a little more space for some crowns in the front, or I would like the canines to be in a better position in order to achieve immediate post disclusion. And so we can go into this discussion back and forth and adjust the digital setup in a way that is more realistic and predictable and do it all for the doctors. So they, on an average, they spend four to six hours less chair time when they use that kind of service compared to if they do everything themselves. And on top of that, you can put your planning time. She was responsible for that and it works quite well. I still remember when we initially got on all these online calls and we would see fireworks in the background and confetti coming down from the top and all of that. [Jaz] Exactly. So excuse that little bit, but okay. So essentially what you’re doing is, for an aligner user myself, for example, you’re doing the ClinChecks, you are helping, supporting with the ClinChecks, the planning. And I’ve got a lot of questions about that. The first question I’ll start with, which is off the script, but there’s probably a hundred different mistakes that could happen in a ClinCheck, right? But what is the most repeatable, predictable, common mistake that you’ll see when a new user sends a case to you to help them with their planning? What’s the most common mistake that you will see in a setup? [Jesper] Two things, actually. The one thing that we always check initially is the occlusion set correct by the aligner company. Because if the occlusion is not set correctly, everything else just doesn’t matter because the teeth will move but into a wrong position because the occlusion is off from the beginning. And so we always check that as the first part. How does this— [Jaz] So let’s talk about that ’cause that might be confusing for a younger colleague because they’re like, hey, hang on a minute. I scanned the bite left and right. What do you mean the occlusion is wrong? Because surely that gets carried through into what I see on the ClinCheck. So what do you think is the mechanism for this to happen? [Jesper] Two different reasons. I’m from a time when I graduated in 2003, so that was before digital dentistry. So when I went to the Pankey Institute and learned everything about functional occlusion and all of that stuff, I also found out that most of my patients, when I put silicone impression material between the teeth and asked the patients to bite together, they would always protrude a little bit unless I instructed them to bite hard on the posterior teeth. And when we got the scanners, when we put a scanner into the cheek and pull the cheek, most patients, when we asked them to bite together to do the intraoral scan of the bite, they also protruded a little bit, not much, but enough to set the bite wrong. So that is the one challenge when the technicians of the aligner companies put the models together. The other challenge is that some of the aligner companies, they let the technicians set the models. We always, as the first thing when we see a case, we always look at the photos, the clinical photos. And that’s why the clinical photos have to be of great quality. So we look at the clinical photos of the patient— [Jaz] And also in those clinical photos, Jesper, you have to coach them correctly to bite. You have to notice if they’re biting wrong even in the photos ’cause then it just duplicates the error. And that’s why good photography and actually being able to coach the patient is so imperative. [Jesper] Yes, that’s correct. But we compare the two and usually if we see a difference, we ask the doctor, is what we see in the photo correct, or is what we see on the digital models correct? And because we don’t like differences. So that would be the first step to look for. And what’s the second? The second thing is that when you look at the setup, the anterior teeth are usually—I’m trying to show you—the anterior teeth are very, very steep. Typically with aligners it’s a lot easier to tip the crowns. So when you have a class II patient, deviation one, where the anteriors are in a forward position, proclined, and you have a lot of space between the anteriors of the maxilla and the mandible, then the easiest thing on a digital setup is to just retrocline the anteriors of the upper to make them fit the lowers, which you could then procline a little bit, but usually you have very steep relationships between the two and this— [Jaz] So you’re more likely to restrict the envelope of function, functional interference anteriorly. You are obviously reducing the overjet, but you may end up reducing like a wall contact rather than an elegant, more open gate. [Jesper] Yes. And there’s another dimension to this because when we work with orthodontics, one of the most important things to look for is actually the profile of the patient. Because let’s say I’m trying to illustrate this now, so I hope you get a 90— [Jaz] So describe it for our audio listeners as well. So we’re looking at a profile view of Jesper. [Jesper] Yes. So I’m turning the side to the camera. I hope you can see my profile here. So let’s say I had flared anterior maxillary teeth and I wanted to retrocline them. It would have an effect on my upper lip, so the lip would fall backwards if I just retrocline everything. And every millimeter we move the anteriors in the maxilla in a posterior direction, we will have a potential lip drop of three millimeters. In addition, if we don’t get the nasolabial angulation correct, we risk the lower face will simply disappear in the face of the patient. So soft tissue plays a role here, so we cannot just retrocline the teeth. It looks great on the computer screen, but when it comes to reality, we’ll have a functional challenge. We’ll have a soft tissue support challenge, and in addition we’ll have long-term retention challenges as well. Because when you have a steep inclination, the anterior teeth in the mandible, they don’t have any kind of support. They will not be stopped by anything in the maxillary teeth, which you would if you had the right inclination between the teeth, which would be about 120 degrees. So why do aligner companies always set the teeth straight up and down in the anterior part? We wondered about this for years. We don’t have a strict answer. We don’t know exactly why it’s like this, but I have a hunch. I think there are two things to it. First of all, the easiest thing to do with aligners is to move the crown, so we can just tip the teeth. You take them back, you make a lot of IPR, and then you just tip them so they’re retroclined. Secondly, all aligner companies, they come from the United States. And in the United States there is a higher representation of class III patients. Now why is that important? All our patients can be put into two different categories in regards to how they move their mandible. They are the crocodiles that only open and close, like move up and down, and then we have the cows. And then we have the cows that move the mandible around, or the camels. I mean, every camel, if you’ve seen a camel chew, it’s just moving from side to side. [Jaz] Horses as well. Horses as well. [Jesper] They kind of do that. [Jaz] But I’m glad you didn’t say rats ’cause it’s more elegant to be a crocodile than a rat. [Jesper] Exactly. And I usually say we only tell the crocodiles. So why is this a challenge and why isn’t it a challenge with class III patients? Well, all real class III patients act like crocodiles, so they don’t move them side to side. From a functional perspective, it’s really not a problem having steep anterior inclination or steep relationships as long as you have a stable stop where the anteriors—so the anteriors will not elongate and create the red effect. So they just elongate until they hit the palate. If you can make a stop in the anterior part of the occlusion, then you’ll have some kind of stability with the class III patients. But with class II patients, we see a lot more cows. So they move the mandible from side to side and anterior and back and forth and all… they have the mandible going all kinds of places. And when they do that, we need some kind of anterior guidance to guide the mandible. I usually say the upper jaw creates the framework in which the mandible will move. So if the framework is too small, we fight the muscles. And whenever we fight the muscles, we lose because muscles always win. It doesn’t matter if it’s teeth, if it’s bone, if it’s joints, they all lose if they fight the muscles— [Jaz] As Peter Dawson would say, in the war between teeth and muscles or any system and muscles, the muscles always win. Absolutely. And the other analogy you remind me of is the maxilla being like a garage or “garage” from UK, like a garage. And the mandible being like the car, and if you’re really constrained, you’re gonna crash in and you’re gonna… everything will be in tatters. So that’s another great way to think about it. Okay. That’s very, very helpful. I’m gonna—’cause there’s so much I wanna cover. And I think you’ve really summed up nicely. But one thing just to finish on this aspect of that common mistake being that the upper anteriors are retroclined, really what you’re trying to say is we need to be looking at other modalities, other movements. So I’m thinking you’re saying extraction, if it’s suitable for the face, or distalisation. Are you thinking like that rather than the easier thing for the aligners, which is the retrocline. Am I going about it the right way? [Jesper] Depends on the patient. [Jaz] Of course. [Jesper] Rule of thumb: if you’re a GP, don’t ever touch extraction cases. Rule of thumb. Why? Because it is extremely challenging to move teeth parallel. So you will most—especially with aligners—I mean, I talk with a very respected orthodontist once and I asked him, well, what do you think about GPs treating extraction cases where they extract, you know, two premolars in the maxilla? And he said, well, I don’t know how to answer this. Let me just explain to you: half of my orthodontist colleagues, they are afraid of extraction cases. And I asked them why. Because it’s so hard to control the root movement. Now, I don’t know about you— [Jaz] With aligners. We’re specifically talking about aligners here, right? [Jesper] With all kinds of orthodontic appliances. [Jaz] Thank you. [Jesper] So now, I don’t know about you, but if half the orthodontists are afraid of controlling the root movements in extraction cases, as a GP, I would be terrified. And I am a GP. So I usually say, yeah, sometimes you will have so much crowding and so little space in the mandible, so there’s an incisor that is almost popped out by itself. In those cases, yes. Then you can do an extraction case. But when we’re talking about premolars that are going to be extracted, or if you want to close the space in the posterior part by translating a tooth into that open space, don’t. It’s just the easiest way to end up in a disaster because the only thing you’ll see is just teeth that tip into that space, and you’ll have a really hard time controlling the root movements, getting them corrected again. [Jaz] Well, thank you for offering that guideline. I think that’s very sage advice for those GPs doing aligners, to stay in your lane and just be… the best thing about being a GP, Jesper, is you get to cherry pick, right? There’s so many bad things about being a GP. Like you literally have to be kinda like a micro-specialist in everything in a way. And so sometimes it’s good to be like, you know what, I’ll keep this and I’ll send this out. And being selective and case selection is the crux of everything. So I’m really glad you mentioned that. I mean, we talked and touched already on so much occlusion. The next question I’m gonna ask you then is, like you said, a common error is the bite and how the bite appears on the ClinCheck or whichever software a dentist is using. Now, related to bite, vast majority of orthodontic cases are treated in the patient’s existing habitual occlusion, their maximum intercuspal position. Early on in my aligner journey, I had a patient who had an anterior crossbite. And because of that anterior crossbite, their jaw deviated. It was a displaced—the lower jaw displaced. And then I learned from that, that actually for that instance, perhaps I should not have used an MIP scan. I should have used more like centric relation or first point of contact scan before the displacement of the jaw happens. So that was like always in my mind. Sometimes we can and should be using an alternative TMJ position or a bite reference other than MIP. Firstly, what do you think about that kind of scenario and are there any other scenarios which you would suggest that we should not be using the patient’s habitual occlusion for their bite scan for planning orthodontics? [Jesper] Well, I mentioned that I was trained at the Pankey Institute, and when you start out right after—I mean, I spent 400 hours over there. Initially, I thought I was a little bit brainwashed by that because I thought every single patient should be in centric relation. Now, after having put more than 600 patients on the bite appliance first before I did anything, I started to see some patterns. And so today, I would say it’s not all patients that I would get into centric relation before I start treating the teeth. But when we talk about aligner therapy and orthodontic treatment, I think it’s beneficial if you can see the signs for those patients where you would say, hmm, something in the occlusion here could be a little bit risky. So let’s say there are wear facets on the molars. That will always trigger a red flag in my head. Let’s say there are crossbites or bite positions that kind of lock in the teeth. We talked about class III patients before, and I said if it’s a real skeletal-deviation class III patient, it’s a crocodile. But sometimes patients are not real class III skeletal deviation patients. They’re simply being forced into a class III due to the occlusion. That’s where the teeth fit together. So once you put aligners between the teeth and plastic covers the surfaces, suddenly the patients are able to move the jaws more freely and then they start to seat into centric. That may be okay. Usually it is okay. The challenge is consequences. So when you’re a GP and you suddenly see a patient moving to centric relation and you find out, whoa, on a horizontal level there’s a four- to six-millimeter difference between the initial starting point and where we are now, and maybe we create an eight-millimeter open bite in the anterior as well because they simply seat that much. And I mean, we have seen it. So is this a disaster? Well, it depends. If you have informed the patient well enough initially and said, well, you might have a lower jaw that moves into a different position when we start out, and if this new position is really, really off compared to where you are right now, you might end up needing maxillofacial surgery, then the patient’s prepared. But if they’re not prepared and you suddenly have to tell them, you know, I think we might need maxillofacial surgery… I can come up with a lot of patients in my head that would say, hey doctor, that was not part of my plan. And they will be really disappointed. And at that point there’s no turning back, so you can’t reverse. So I think if you are unsure, then you are sure. Then you should use some kind of deprogramming device or figure out where is centric relation on this patient. If there isn’t that much of a difference between maximum intercuspation and centric— [Jesper] Relation, I don’t care. Because once you start moving the teeth, I don’t care if you just move from premolar to premolar or all the teeth. Orthodontics is orthodontics, so you will affect all the teeth during the treatment. The question’s just how much. And sometimes it’s just by putting plastic between the teeth that you will see a change, not in the tooth position, but in the mandibular position. And I just think it’s nicer to know a little bit where this is going before you start. And the more you see of this—I mean, as I mentioned, after 600 bite appliances in the mouths of my patients, I started to see patterns. And sometimes in the end, after 20 years of practicing, I started to say, let’s just start, see where this ends. But I would always inform the patients: if it goes totally out of control, we might end up needing surgery, and there’s no way to avoid it if that happens. And if the patients were okay with that, we’d just start out. Because I mean, is it bad? No. I just start the orthodontic treatment and I set the teeth as they should be in the right framework. Sometimes the upper and the lower jaw don’t fit together. Well, send them to the surgeon and they will move either the upper or the lower jaw into the right position, and then we have it. No harm is done because we have done the initial work that the orthodontist would do. But I will say when I had these surgical patients—let’s say we just started out with aligners and we figured, I can’t control this enough. I need a surgeon to look at this—then I would send them off to an orthodontist, and the orthodontist and the surgeon would take over. Because then—I mean, surgical patients and kids—that’s the second group of patients besides the extraction cases that I would not treat as a GP. ‘Cause we simply don’t know enough about how to affect growth on kids. And when it comes to surgery, there’s so much that is… so much knowledge that we need to know and the collaboration with the surgeons that we’re not trained to handle. So I think that should be handled by the orthodontists as well. [Jaz] I think collaborative cases like that are definitely specialist in nature, and I think that’s a really good point. I think the point there was informed consent. The mistake is you don’t warn the patient or you do not do the correct screening. So again, I always encourage my guests—so Jesper, you included—that we may disagree, and that’s okay. That’s the beauty of dentistry. So something that I look for is: if the patient has a stable and repeatable maximum intercuspal position, things lock very well, and there’s a minimal slide—like I use my leaf gauge and the CR-CP is like a small number of leaves and the jaw hardly moves a little bit—then there’s no point of uncoupling them, removing that nice posterior coupling that they have just to chase this elusive joint position. Then you have to do so many more teeth. But when we have a breakdown in the system, which you kind of said, if there’s wear as one aspect, or we think that, okay, this patient’s occlusion is not really working for them, then we have an opportunity to do full-mouth rehabilitation in enamel. Because that’s what orthodontics is. And so that’s a point to consider. So I would encourage our GP colleagues to look at the case, look at the patient in front of you, and decide: is this a stable, repeatable occlusion that you would like to use as a baseline, or is there something wrong? Then consider referring out or considering—if you’re more advanced in occlusion studies—using an alternative position, not the patient’s own bite as a reference. So anything you wanna add to that or disagree with in that monologue I just said there? [Jesper] No, I think there’s one thing I’d like the listeners to consider. I see a lot of fighting between orthodontists and GPs, and I think it should be a collaboration instead. There’s a lot of orthodontists that are afraid of GPs taking over more and more aligner treatments, and they see a huge increase in the amount of cases that go wrong. Well, there’s a huge increase of patients being treated, so there will be more patients, just statistically, that will get into problems. Now, if the orthodontist is smart—in my opinion, that’s my opinion—they reach out to all their referring doctors and they tell them, look, come in. I will teach you which cases you can start with and which you should refer. Let’s start there. Start your aligner treatments. Start out, try stuff. I will be there to help you if you run into problems. So whenever you see a challenge, whenever there’s a problem, send the patient over to me and I’ll take over. But I will be there to help you if anything goes wrong. Now, the reason this is really, really a great business advice for the orthodontists is because once you teach the GPs around you to look for deviations from the normal, which would be the indication for orthodontics, the doctors start to diagnose and see a lot more patients needing orthodontics and prescribe it to the patients, or at least propose it to the patients. Which would initially not do much more than just increase the amount of aligner treatments. But over time, I tell you, all the orthodontists doing this, they are drowning in work. So I mean, they will literally be overflown by patients being referred by all the doctors, because suddenly all the other doctors around them start to diagnose orthodontically. They see the patients which they haven’t seen before. So I think this is—from a business perspective—a really, really great thing for the orthodontists to have a collaboration with this. And it’ll also help the GPs to feel more secure when they start treating their patients. And in the end, that will lead to more patients getting the right treatment they deserve. And I think that is the core. That is what’s so important for us to remember. That’s what we’re here for. I mean, yes, it’s nice to make money. We have to live. It’s nice with a great business, but what all dentists I know of are really striving for is to treat their patients to the best of their ability. And this helps them to do that. [Jaz] Ultimate benefactor of this collaborative approach is the patient. And I love that you said that. I think I want all orthodontists to listen to that soundbite and take it on board and be willing to help. Most of them I know are lovely orthodontists and they’re helping to teach their GPs and help them and in return they get lots of referrals. And I think that’s the best way to go. Let’s talk a little bit about occlusal goals we look for at the end of orthodontics. This is an interesting topic. I’m gonna start by saying that just two days ago I got a DM from one of the Protruserati, his name is Keith Curry—shout out to him on Instagram—and he just sent me a little message: “Jaz, do you sometimes find that when you’re doing alignment as a GP that it’s conflicting the orthodontic, the occlusal goal you’re trying to get?” And I knew what I was getting to. It’s that scenario whereby you have the kind of class II division 2, right? But they have anterior guidance. Now you align everything, okay, and now you completely lost anterior guidance. And so the way I told him is that, you know what, yes, this is happening all the time. Are we potentially at war between an aesthetic smile and a functional occlusion? And sometimes there’s a compromise. Sometimes you can have both. But that—to achieve both—needs either a specialist set of eyes or lots of auxiliary techniques or a lot more time than what GPs usually give for their cases. So first let’s touch on that. Do you also agree that sometimes there is a war between what will be aesthetic and what will be a nice functional occlusion? And then we’ll actually talk about, okay, what are some of the guidelines that we look for at the end of completing an aligner case? [Jesper] Great question and great observation. I would say I don’t think there’s a conflict because what I’ve learned is form follows function. So if you get the function right, aesthetics will always be great. Almost always. I mean, we have those crazy-shaped faces sometimes, but… so form follows function. The challenge here is that in adult patients, we cannot manipulate growth. So a skeletal deviation is a skeletal deviation, which means if we have a class II patient, it’s most likely that that patient has a skeletal deviation. I rarely see a dental deviation. It happens, but it’s really, really rare. So that means that in principle, all our class II and chronic class III patients are surgical patients. However, does that mean that we should treat all our class II and class III patients surgically? No, I don’t think so. But we have to consider that they are all compromise cases. So we need to figure a compromise. So initially, when I started out with my occlusal knowledge, I have to admit, I didn’t do the orthodontic treatment planning. I did it with Heller, and she would give me feedback and tell me, I think this is doable and this is probably a little bit challenging. If we do this instead, we can keep the teeth within the bony frame. We can keep them in a good occlusion. Then I would say, well, you have a flat curve of Spee. I’d like to have a little bit of curve. It’s called a curve of Spee and not the orthodontic flat curve of Spee. And then we would have a discussion back and forth about that. Then initially I would always want anterior coupling where the anterior teeth would touch each other. I have actually changed that concept in my mind and accepted the orthodontic way of thinking because most orthodontists will leave a little space in the anterior. So when you end the orthodontic treatment, you almost always have a little bit of space between the anterior teeth so they don’t touch each other. Why? Because no matter what, no matter how you retain the patient after treatment, there will still be some sort of relapse. And we don’t know where it’ll come or how, but it will come. Because the teeth will always be positioned in a balance between the push from the tongue and from the cheeks and the muscles surrounding the teeth. And that’s a dynamic that changes over the years. So I don’t see retention as a one- or two-year thing. It’s a lifelong thing. And the surrounding tissues will change the pressure and thereby the balance between the tongue and the cheeks and where the teeth would naturally settle into position. Now, that said, as I mentioned initially, if we fight the muscles, we’ll lose. So let’s say we have an anterior open bite. That will always create a tongue habit where the patient positions the tongue in the anterior teeth when they swallow because if they don’t, food and drink will just be splashed out between the teeth. They can’t swallow. It will just be pushed out of the mouth. [Jaz] So is that not like a secondary thing? Like that tongue habit is secondary to the AOB? So in those cases, if you correct the anterior open bite, theoretically should that tongue posture not self-correct? [Jesper] Well, we would like to think so, but it’s not always the case. And there’s several reasons to it. Because why are the teeth in the position? Is it because of the tongue or because of the tooth position? Now, spacing cases is one of those cases where you can really illustrate it really well. It looks really easy to treat these patients. If we take away all the soft tissue considerations on the profile photo, I mean, you can just retract the teeth and you close all the spaces—super easy. Tipping movements. It’s super easy orthodontically to move quickly. Very easy as well. However, you restrict the tongue and now we have a retention problem. So there are three things that can happen. You can bond a retainer on the lingual side or the palatal side of the teeth, upper, lower—just bond everything together—and after three months, you will have a diastema distal to the bonded retainer because the tongue simply pushes all the teeth in an anterior direction. [Jaz] I’ve also seen—and you’ve probably seen this as well—the patient’s tongue being so strong in these exact scenarios where the multiple spacing has been closed, which probably should have been a restorative plan rather than orthodontic plan, and the retainer wire snaps in half. [Jesper] Yes, from the tongue. [Jaz] That always fascinated me. [Jesper] Well, you’ll see debonding all the time, even though you sandblast and you follow all the bonding protocol. And debonding, breaking wires, diastemas in places where you think, how is that even possible? Or—and this is the worst part—or you induce sleep apnea on these patients because you simply restrict the space for the tongue. So they start snoring, and then they have a total different set of health issues afterwards. So spacing—I mean, this just illustrates the power of the tongue and why we should always be careful with spacing cases. I mean, spacing cases, in my opinion, are always to be considered ortho-restorative cases. Or you can consider, do you want to leave some space distal to the canines? Because there you can create an optical illusion with composites. Or do you want to distribute space equally between the teeth and place veneers or crowns or whatever. And this is one of those cases where I’d say aligners are just fabulous compared to fixed appliances. Because if you go to an orthodontist only using fixed appliances and you tell that orthodontist, please redistribute space in the anterior part of the maxilla and I want exactly 1.2 millimeters between every single tooth in the anterior segment, six years later he’s still not reached that goal because it just moves back and forth. Put aligners on: three months later, you have exactly—and I mean exactly—1.2 millimeters of space between each and every single tooth. When it comes to intrusion and extrusion, I would probably consider using fixed appliances rather than aligners if it’s more than three millimeters. So every orthodontic system—and aligners are just an orthodontic system—each system has its pros and cons, and we just have to consider which system is right for this patient that I have in my chair. But back to the tongue issue. What should we do? I mean, yes, there are two different schools. So if you have, let’s say, a tongue habit that needs to be treated, there are those that say we need to get rid of the tongue habit before we start to correct the teeth. And then there are those that say that doesn’t really work because there’s no room for the tongue. So we need to create room for the tongue first and then train the patient to stop the habit. Both schools and both philosophies are being followed out there. I have my preferred philosophy, but I will let the listener start to think about what they believe and follow their philosophy. Because there is nothing here that is right or wrong. And that is— [Jaz] I think the right answer, Jesper, is probably speak to that local orthodontist who’s gonna be helping you out and whatever they recommend—their religion—follow that one. Because then at least you have something to defend yourself. Like okay, I followed the way you said. Let’s fix it together now. [Jesper] That’s a great one. Yeah, exactly. [Jaz] Okay, well just touching up on the occlusion then, sometimes we do get left with like suboptimal occlusions. But to be able to define a suboptimal occlusion… let’s wrap this occlusion element up. When we are completing an orthodontic case—let’s talk aligners specifically—when the aligners come off and the fixed retainers come on, for example, and the patient’s now in retention, what are some of the occlusal checkpoints or guidelines that you advise checking for to make sure that, okay, now we have a reasonably okay occlusion and let things settle from here? For example, it would be, for me, a failure if the patient finishes their aligners and they’re only holding articulating paper on one side and not the other side. That’s for me a failure. Or if they’ve got a posterior open bite bilaterally. Okay, then we need to go refinement. We need to get things sorted. But then where do you draw the line? How extreme do you need to be? Do you need every single tooth in shim-stock foil contact? Because then we are getting really beyond that. We have to give the adaptation some wiggle room to happen. So I would love to know from your learning at Pankey, from your experience, what would you recommend is a good way for a GP to follow about, okay, it may not be perfect and you’ll probably never get perfect. And one of the orthodontists that taught me said he’s never, ever done a case that’s finished with a perfect occlusion ever. And he said that to me. [Jesper] So—and that’s exactly the point with orthodontics. I learned that imagine going to a football stadium. The orthodontist will be able to find the football stadium. If it’s a reasonable orthodontist, he’ll be able to find the section you’re going to sit in. And if he’s really, really, really good, he will be able to find the row that you’re going to sit in. But the exact spot where you are going to sit, he will never, ever be able to find that with orthodontics. And this is where settling comes in and a little bit of enamel adjustments. [Jaz] I’m so glad you said that. I’m so glad you mentioned enamel adjustment. That’s a very dirty word, but I agree with that. And here’s what I teach on my occlusion courses: what we do with aligners essentially is we’re tampering with the lock. Let’s say the upper jaw is the lock. It’s the still one. We’re tampering with the key, which is the lower jaw—the one that moves—we tamper with the key and the lock, and we expect them both to fit together at the end without having to shave the key and to modify the lock. So for years I was doing aligners without enamel adjustment ’cause my eyes were not open. My mind was not open to this. And as I learned, and now I use digital measuring of occlusion stuff and I seldom can finish a case to get a decent—for my criteria, which is higher than it used to be, and my own stat—is part of my own growth that’s happened over time is that I just think it’s an important skill that GPs are not taught and they should be. It’s all about finishing that case. And I think, I agree with you that some adjustment goes a long way. We’re not massacring enamel. It’s little tweaks to get that. [Jesper] Exactly. I like the sound there because sometimes you hear that “ahh,” it doesn’t really sound right, but “tsst,” that’s better. [Jaz] That’s the one. You know, it reminds me of that lecture you did in Copenhagen. You did this cool thing—which I’ve never seen anyone do before. You sat with one leg over the other and you said, okay guys, bite together. Everyone bit together. And then you swapped the legs so the other leg was over the other and bite together. And then you said, okay, whose occlusion felt different? And about a third of the audience put their hand up, I think. Tell us about that for a second. [Jesper] Well, just promise me we go back to the final part because there are some things we should consider. [Jaz] Let’s save this as a secret thing at the end for incentive for everyone to listen to the end—how the leg position changes your occlusion. Let’s talk about the more important thing. I digressed. [Jesper] Let’s talk about the occlusal goals because I think it’s important. I mean, if you do enamel adjustments in the end—so when we finish the treatment, when we come to the last aligner in the treatment plan—I think we should start by breaking things down to the simplest way possible. Start by asking the patient: are you satisfied with the way the teeth look? Yes or no? If she’s satisfied, great. How do you feel about the occlusion? “Well, it fits okay.” Great. Now the patient is happy. There’s nothing she wants to—or he wants to—change. Then you look at the occlusion. Now, it is important to remember that what we see on the computer screen, on the aligner planning tools, will never, ever correspond 100% to what we see in the mouth of the patient. And there are several reasons for that. But one of the things that we have found to be really interesting is that if you take that last step and you say, okay, the occlusion doesn’t fit exactly as on the screen, but it’s kind of there… if you use that last step and you don’t do a re-scan for a retainer, but you use the last step of the aligner treatment as your reference for your aligner retainer… We sometimes see that over six months, if the patient wears that aligner 22 hours a day for another three to six months, the teeth will settle more and more into the aligner and create an occlusion that looks more and more like what you see on the screen. Which to me just tells me that the biology doesn’t necessarily follow the plan everywhere in the tempo that we set throughout the aligner plan. But over time, at the last step, if it’s just minor adjustments, the teeth will actually move into that position if we use the last stage as a reference for the retainer. Now, if we do a scan at that point and use that as a reference for creating an aligner retainer, then we just keep the teeth in that position. Now, if the teeth are a little bit more off— [Jaz] I’m just gonna recap that, Jesper, ’cause I understood what you said there, but I want you to just make sure I fully understood it. When we request, for example, Align, the Vivera retainer, it gives you an option: “I will submit a new scan” or “use the last step.” And actually I seldom use that, but now I realize you’re right. It makes sense. But then on the one hand, if the occlusion is—if the aesthetics are good and the patient’s occlusion feels good, what is your own judgment to decide whether we’re still going to allow for some more settling and occlusal changes to happen over a year using the Vivera retainers based on the ClinCheck last-aligner profile, rather than, okay, let’s just retain to this position? What is making you do the extra work, extra monitoring? [Jesper] To me, it’s not extra monitoring. It’s just basic. I mean, it’s just part of my protocol. I follow the patients. And honestly, to me, it’s just time-saving to just use the last step in the aligner. Because I mean, if the plan is right and if the teeth have been tracking well, they should be in that position. Why do I then need to re-scan for Vivera retainers or for other kinds of retainers? Now, if the occlusion is a little bit more off—and in a minute you’ll probably ask me when do I see which is which, and I can’t really tell you; it’s about experience—but that’s the beauty of this. If I see there’s a little bit more deviation and I like some teeth, the occlusion isn’t really good on one side compared to the other side, I would rather have a bonded retainer from first premolar to first premolar in the mandible, combined with a Hawley or Begg or something like that retainer for the upper. And you can order them with an acrylic plate covering some of the anterior teeth so they keep that position, but that allows the teeth to settle. And over three months you should see some kind of improvement. If you don’t see enough improvement and let’s say you still have a tendency for a kind of an open bite on one side, you can always add some cross elastics, put some buttons on the upper, on the lower, instruct the patient to use these, and then in three months you will have the occlusion you want. Now, once that is established—you have that kind of occlusion—you need to keep the teeth there for at least six months before you do some kind of equilibration or enamel adjustment. Because if you do the enamel adjustment right after you have reached your final destination for the teeth, the teeth will still settle and move. So you do the equilibration, two weeks later everything looks off again. You do the equilibration, two weeks later things have changed again. So I prefer to wait six months before I do the final equilibration. Now, in this equation what we’ve been talking about here, it goes from very simple to more and more complex. And then we have to consider, well, did I expand the mandible posterior segment? If so, I can’t just use a bonded retainer on the lower and I need to add something to keep the teeth out there in combination with whatever I want in the upper. Do I want to keep the Begg retainer or the Hawley, or do I want to change to something differently? So these kinds of considerations have to be there from the beginning of the treatment because, I mean, it costs additional money to order a Begg retainer compared to just an aligner. [Jaz] A Begg retainer is the same as Hawley? [Jesper] Well, no. It has a little different design. [Jaz] Oh, a Begg as in B-E-G-G? [Jesper] Yes. [Jaz] Yeah, got it. Got it. Okay. [Jesper] And then in Denmark we use the Jensen retainer, which is a Danish invention, which goes from canine to canine or from first premolar to first premolar but with a different type of wire which keeps the teeth more in place compared to a round wire. So there are different variations. The most important part here is it allows the posterior teeth to settle so they can move, which they can’t in an aligner to the same degree at least. Now, this is all really nice in teeth that only need to be moved into the right position, but most of our patients are adult patients, or they should at least be adult patients. Most of my patients were more than 30 years old. So if you have a patient with anterior crowding and you move the teeth into the right position where the teeth should be, the teeth are in the right position, but they still look ugly because they have been worn anteriorly by the position they were in when they were crooked. So when we position them, we still need to do some restorative work. Then what? We still need to retain those teeth. The patient wants to be finished now as fast as possible, so we can’t wait the six months to make the final touches. So we have to figure out: what do we do? And then we have to think of some kind of retention strategy to keep the teeth in place during that restorative procedure. And I mean, at the end of an aligner treatment or any orthodontic treatment, two days is enough to have relapse in some patients. Some patients it’s not a problem. The teeth are just there to stay in the same position for three months, and then they start to move a little bit around. But other patients—I mean, you just have to look away and then go back to the teeth and they’re in a different position. You can’t know what kind of patient you have in your chair right now. So you have to consider the way you plan your restorative procedure in regards to how you retain the teeth during that phase. So if you want to do anterior composites or veneers, do it all at once. Put in a bonded retainer, scan, and get your aligner retainer as fast as possible. Or use a Begg or a Hawley or something like that that’s a little bit more flexible. If you want to do crowns, then we have a whole different challenge and then we have to consider how do we then retain the teeth. [Jaz] Okay. Well I think that was lovely. I think that gives us some thoughts and ideas of planning sequence of retention, which is the ultimate thing to consider when it comes to occlusion. Okay, yeah, you get the occlusion, but how do you retain it? But in many cases, as the patient’s wearing aligners, the occlusion is embedding in and is fine. And you take off the aligners, the patient’s happy with how it looks. They bite together. It feels good. You are happy that yes, both sides of the mouth are biting together. Now, it might not be that every single contact is shim-hold, but you got, let’s say, within 20 microns, 40 microns, okay? Then some bedding happens. In that kind of scenario, would you be happy to say, okay, I’m gonna scan your teeth as they are because I’m happy with the occlusion, the occlusal goals are good, and they’re near enough the ClinCheck, and go for the retainers to that position? Or is your default preference as a clinician to go for the Vivera or equivalent based on the last aligner, on the ClinCheck projection? [Jesper] I would still go for the last aligner because I think the planning I’ve done is probably a little bit more precise than what I see clinically. However, I still expect that I will have to do a little bit of enamel reshaping at the end after six months, but that’s okay. I mean, the changes are so small, so you can still use the last aligner or the Vivera retainer that you already have ordered. So it’s not that much of a problem. [Jaz] Which goes back to your previous point: if it’s a big deviation, then you’ve gotta look at the alternative ways, whether you’re gonna go for refinement or you’re gonna allow some occlusal settling with a Hawley and a lower fixed-retainer combination, or the elastics like you said. Okay. Just so we’re coming to the end of the podcast—and I really enjoyed our time—I would like to delve deep into just a final thing, which is a little checklist, a helpful checklist for case assessment that you have for GDPs. [Jesper] Yeah, thank you. First of all, one of the big challenges in a GP practice is being able to take a full series of clinical photos in two minutes without assistance. I think most dentists struggle with that, but that is a foundational prerequisite to any aligner treatment. Once you have the photos, I would sit down with the photos and I would consider six different steps. One: is this a patient that I could treat restoratively only? Because that would be the simplest for me to do. Next, moving up in complexity: would be, do I need periodontal crown lengthening? Or next step would be: do I need to change the vertical dimension, or is there something about centric relation that I should consider? Moving up a little bit on the complexity: are there missing teeth? Do I need to replace teeth with implants? Next step would be orthodontics. So this is step five. The next most complex case we can treat is actually an aligner case—orthodontics in general. And the last part would be: are the teeth actually in the right position in the face of the patient, or do I need surgery to correct the jaw position? So these six steps, I think they’re helpful to follow to just think, how can I break this case down into more easy, digestible bits and pieces to figure out what kind of patient I have in front of me? Now, if you consider it to be an orthodontic case or ortho-restorative case, here comes the challenge: case selection. How do you figure out is this an easy, moderate, complex, or referral case? And here’s the trick: do 500 to 1000 treatment plans or treatments with clear aligners. And then you know. But until then, you really don’t. This is where you should rely on someone you can trust who can help you do the initial case selection. Because you can have two identical patients—one is easy and one is super complex—but they look the same. So it’s really nice if you have done less than 500 cases to have someone who can help you with the case selection. And I don’t say this to sell anything, because we don’t charge for that. Because it’s so essential that we don’t do something that is wrong or gives us a lot of challenges and headaches in the practice. I mean, the practice runs really fast and lean-oriented, so we need to make things digestible, easy to work with. And I think that’s really important. [Jaz] It goes full circle to what we said before about having that referral network, staying in your lane, knowing when to refer out, cherry-picking—it all goes back full circle with that. And not even orthodontics, but restorative dentistry—case selection is just imperative in everything we do. [Jesper] Yes. And there is—we always get the question when we do courses and we do consulting—can’t you just show me a couple of cases that are easy to start with? And it works with implants, kind of. But with orthodontics where we move—I mean, we affect all the teeth—it’s just not possible. I know the aligner companies want to show you some where you say, you can only just do these kinds of cases and they are really easy. The fact is they’re not. But they want to sell their aligners. [Jaz] I get it. They are until they’re not. It’s like that famous thing, right? Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face. So yeah, it can seemingly be easy, but then a complication happens and it’s really about understanding what complications to expect, screening for them, and how you handle that. But thanks so much. Tell us—yeah, go on, sorry. [Jesper] There are three things I’d like to end on here. So, first of all, we’ve been talking together for about an hour about a topic that, if you want to take postgraduate education, it takes three years to become an orthodontist. And there is a reason it takes three to four years. However, I want to encourage the listener to think about this: Mercedes has never, ever excused last year’s model. Meaning that they always strive for perfection. So if we go into the practice and we do the very best we can every single day, there is no way we can go back and excuse what we
This episode of IVCC Pulse features a discussion with Crystal Credi, Dean of Student Success, and Ashlee Fitzpatrick, Associate Director of Retention and how IVCC is taking a holistic approach to student success. The highlight of this discussion is the on-campus food pantry, Eagles Peak. Food insecurity is concern across most college campuses and IVCC is no different. In order to raise not only awareness, but also to receive donations, IVCC is participating in the Illinois Community College Board's "Feed the Need Campus Food Drive." This is a friendly competition between community colleges in Illinois to see which campus can receive the most donations. This discussion was recorded on Nov. 13, almost one month since the start of the campaign on Oct. 15, 2025. As of posting date (Nov. 25), IVCC has received 2271 total donations. The campaign runs until Dec. 1, 2025. In the spirit of the Holidays, please consider making a donation of non-perishable food items to Eagles Peak. If you would like to make another kind of donation, please contact the IVCC Foundation at (815) 224-0550 and specify that your donation is to go to Eagles Peak.
If patients drop out once they feel better, the problem might not be results—it might be how you’re communicating the journey. In this episode, I share five common retention mistakes chiropractors make and the simple shifts to help patients stay, engage, and thrive under care.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This isn't your typical "we raised $50M and exited" story. This is what happens when you have no choice but to figure it out yourselves. When the tripod refuses to fall. When you run out of everything except ideas. This is the story of Heroic Labs.About Heroic Labs: Core infrastructure for game studios. If you've played games from Zynga, Gram Games, or dozens of other studios, you've used their tech without knowing it. That's by design.
In this archive episode, we dive into the concept of “Profit First” E-commerce and why focusing solely on revenue can lead to big surprises. Karl O'Brien, Co-Founder of Store Hero, an e-commerce analytics tool, shares how their system helps store owners avoid common financial pitfalls by shifting their focus from top-line sales to bottom-line profitability. He explains how to gain a clear view of true profit and what to do with that information to drive business forward.Topics discussed in this episode: Why many merchants get a profit shock at month's end. Why revenue-based decisions can hurt profits in e-commerce. How contribution margin bridges the gap between marketing and finance. What products are hidden cash cows or are actually unprofitable. How to calculate break-even point ROAS for individual products. Why Q4 strategy should be based on profit, not just sales.What Store Hero is: a profit-first e-commerce analytics tool. Links & Resources Website: https://storehero.ai/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/storehero/Twitter: https://twitter.com/StoreHeroApp Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at https://tinyurl.com/dsay245p______________________________________________________ LOVE THE SHOW? HERE ARE THE NEXT STEPS! Follow the podcast to get every bonus episode. Tap follow now and don't miss out! Rate & Review: Help others discover the show by rating the show on Apple Podcasts at https://tinyurl.com/ecb-apple-podcasts Join our Free Newsletter: https://newsletter.ecommercecoffeebreak.com/ Support The Show On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EcommerceCoffeeBreak Partner with us: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/partner-with-us/
This week, I interviewed Claude Silver, the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX. Her new book, Be Yourself at Work, offers key insights into the role of authenticity in the workplace culture and its impact on retention. Here are my three key takeaways: 1. Authenticity as a Business Superpower for Workplace Culture The core message is to "be yourself at work," which Silver argues is today's greatest business superpower. This speaks directly to workplace culture, suggesting that genuine self-expression, rather than hiding or "code-switching," is crucial for both individual and organizational success. Silver makes the case that true authenticity is a proactive, offensive message that drives success, contrasting it with the "lazy" or "shrinking" tendency to hide emotions or true selves out of fear. A culture that embraces the "complexity of being human at work" fosters a space where people not only fit in but truly belong. 2. Prioritizing Emotional Health and Agency to Improve Retention Silver shares a powerful anecdote about an employee who was struggling with depression but felt safe enough to approach her, which led to a profound, empathetic exchange. This highlights the importance of addressing the emotional well-being of employees, a critical factor for retention. The takeaway is that leaders must be: Receptive: Willing to step away from traditional, transactional HR responses to meet employees where they are. Empathetic: Approaching conversations with non-judgmental sincerity and compassion. Furthermore, Silver emphasizes that employees always have agency and choice. For individuals, the first step is to get comfortable with themselves—to address shame, fear, and insecurity—to become the "CEO of you". This focus on personal agency and psychological safety is vital for building trust and creating a culture where employees feel valued enough to stay. 3. Cultivating a Human-Centered Leadership Approach for Retention and Culture Silver's role as Chief Heart Officer and her work embody a human-centered approach to leadership. For an organization to successfully promote an authentic workplace culture and improve retention, it needs to: Identify and Utilize Culture Champions: Even without a "Chief Heart Officer," companies have highly empathetic, service-oriented people they can utilize to facilitate growth and change. Lead with the Heart: The effective leader, or "coach," is one who is willing to show up for their team, shine a light on both their roadblocks and their triumphs, and operate from a place of trust and non-judgment. Model Self-Awareness: Leaders must be committed to their own journey of self-awareness and emotional regulation to create a safe, supportive environment for their teams. This "give and take" approach, where both leadership and employees agree on a set of expectations and supportive behaviors, is what ultimately helps a company grow into an organization that is "whole for themselves." Follow Claude at https://www.claudesilver.com/.
What happens when autobattlers fail to monetize? We pull Arto Huhta into the cast and chat about Telegram's pseudo-WeChat ambitions. Eric releases a distrack on Game Designer's obsessed social spaces, and Phil wants more blood from psychologists' nonsensical F2P "choice overload." Chris enleashes a model-meets-UGC experiment: a three-algorithm simulation that shows how recommendation systems distort consumer welfare and creator inequality. We discuss: How Arto sees the split between economy design, product management, and classical economics (hint: it's not what you think) Pets as permanent progression, and the design logic behind Nonstop Knight's monetization turnaround Why creator inequality explodes under bad reinforcement A brewing debate on regulation that is just getting started... Chapters 00:00 Journey to London: A Game Developer's Path 00:49 The Role of Economy Design in Gaming 01:20 From Academia to Game Development: Bridging the Gap 03:16 Experimentation in Game Design: Lessons Learned 05:22 The Intersection of Game Design and Economics 10:07 Understanding Game Development Roles 11:00 Monetization Strategies in Game Design 11:55 The Evolution of Publishing Models 12:42 Transitioning to Web 3: New Challenges 13:54 The Economics of Game Spending 18:27 Introduction to Game Economist Cast 19:06 Current Gaming Trends and Preferences 20:51 Game Modes and Player Engagement 22:03 The Future of Game Monetization 27:33 The Social Hub Experiment in Fighting Games 28:26 Street Fighter VI and Social Interaction 30:28 The Rise of HTML5 Games on Platforms 32:37 The Trend of Casual Games in Tech Companies 34:42 Telegram Games: A New Frontier 37:21 Challenges in Game Discovery on Telegram 38:52 User Engagement and Retention in Web3 Gaming 39:43 Consumer Welfare and Content Creation Dynamics 43:04 The Impact of Algorithms on User Experience 49:31 Heterogeneous Goods and Their Effects on Engagement 57:35 The Impact of Algorithms on Content Quality 59:04 Understanding Algorithmic Risks and User Retention 01:00:16 Exploring Algorithm Design in Gaming Platforms 01:01:54 The Role of User Choice in Content Discovery 01:04:29 The Future of Pricing Strategies in Free-to-Play Games 01:08:10 The Debate on Standardization and Market Forces Chapters (00:00:00) - The Cost of Free Speech(00:00:49) - Game of Connors Cast(00:01:16) - Meet Free-To-Play Designer Phil Rubin(00:02:43) - The Art of Being a Game Economist(00:03:59) - How to Get Out of Your Job(00:05:22) - Are You More of an Economist or a Designer?(00:07:51) - Candy Crush: Experimentation and Optimization(00:10:07) - Ex-Monetization Manager at King Publishing(00:12:30) - Have We Overreacted to Free-To-Play?(00:15:17) - Half-Off and the Price(00:18:27) - How To Make a Slop slideshow(00:18:56) - What Have You Been Playing?(00:20:35) - Clash Royale: The Future of Content(00:23:55) - How To Play Hearthstone With Re-rolling(00:25:59) - 2K XO: A Hardcore Fighting Game(00:29:37) - Fortnite vs. Monster Hunter: The Social Hub(00:30:29) - Are We Ready for Content in the Future?(00:34:24) - Facebook vs Instagram: What's The Difference?(00:34:57) - Telegram's plans for games(00:36:22) - How Telegram Could Make Games More Profitable(00:43:15) - The Probability of Encountering a Good(00:44:28) - Anatomy of Facebook's algorithm(00:49:53) - The Gini coefficient of content creators profit(00:54:30) - Measuring the social network's heterogeneous goods(00:58:58) - The Mix of Algorithms and Churn(01:01:07) - Do Algorithm Designers Care About Producer GENIE?(01:01:55) - What Should Roblox Do About Popularity?(01:03:51) - Too Much Choice in Online Content(01:05:56) - Is There Choice Overload in Mobile Games?(01:06:49) - What about discounts on hard currency purchases?(01:07:46) - Free-To-Play: Quantity Based Discounts(01:11:11) - USB 2.0: Standardization(01:12:11) - Roblox: Arto on UGC(01:13:27) - GIM economist cast episode 44
Today’s caller runs a tiny subscription app and has two grand to spend. Should that money patch cancelations or chase new sign-ups? We’ll do the napkin math and land on a clear next step. Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week. Show notes: SideHustleSchool.com Email: team@sidehustleschool.com Be on the show: SideHustleSchool.com/questions Connect on Instagram: @193countries Visit Chris's main site: ChrisGuillebeau.com Read A Year of Mental Health: yearofmentalhealth.com If you're enjoying the show, please pass it along! It's free and has been published every single day since January 1, 2017. We're also very grateful for your five-star ratings—it shows that people are listening and looking forward to new episodes.
Mike Hoss and Mike Detillier co-hosted a special edition of WWL's Fans and the Pro, live at Rouse's Market in Metairie. The guys previewed the second round of the LHSAA Football Playoffs and Tulane's challenge against Temple this weekend. Zack Nagy, an LSU reporter for Sports Illustrated, joined Fans and the Pro. Nagy broke down the latest from the Tigers' pursuit of Lane Kiffin to fill their head coaching vacancy. Mike and Mike promoted the NFL's "My Cause My Cleats" weekend and spoke to former WDSU chief meteorologist Margaret Orr about Saints DT John Ridgeway's charity choice. The guys interviewed D. Orlando Ledbetter, a Falcons beat writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about the Saints' NFC South showdown against the Falcons.
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When Erica Kuhl joined Salesforce as employee #176, nothing about her role or title suggested she would go on to build one of the most influential customer communities in SaaS history. Given a broken website, no roadmap, no team, she hacked together the first Salesforce Community with duct-taped technologies, raw conviction, and a fierce belief that customers needed a place to help each other.That grassroots experiment eventually grew into a 17 million-member global community, became a blueprint for digital customer success, and reshaped the way enterprise SaaS companies think about adoption, retention, and product feedback loops.Today, Erica is EVP & GM at Gainsight, leading community, education, and in-app product experience—and shaping the emerging category of Digital Customer Success.This episode is a masterclass in community-powered retention, scrappy innovation, and how one person can build an entirely new motion inside an organization long before the market knows it needs it.---Timestamps0:00 – Preview 0:58 – Meet Erica Kuhl: EVP at Gainsight & Former Employee #176 at Salesforce3:39 – What Early Salesforce Adoption Actually Looked Like6:25 – Teaching Admins Before Admins Existed9:40 – Why Erica Pitched a Community Before “Community” Was a Thing11:25 – Building the First Salesforce Community13:43 – Scaling Without Support19:30 – How Community Became a Strategic Retention Lever 24:44 – Defining Digital Customer Success26:35 – Where to Start: Crawl–Walk–Run for Digital CS30:25 – Why Community Multiplies GRR31:28 – Closing Thoughts---What You'll Learn- How the first modern SaaS community was built—from scratch, without buy-in- Why peer-to-peer engagement scales support, adoption, and product feedback- How to tie community engagement directly to retention (and why it's essential)- Why COVID reshaped the priority of customer marketing and always-on programs- How community, education, and in-app experiences converge into Digital CS- Where digital CS programs should start and how to avoid fragmented experiences- The cultural mindset needed to build community programs that actually survive- Practical tactics for early-stage community building: seeding, puppeteering, protecting, and aligning---Check out the Key Takeaways & Transcripts: https://www.gainsight.com/presents/series/unchurned/---Where to Find Erica:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericakuhl/Podcast: In Before the LockWhere to Find Josh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/---Resources Mentioned:* Gainsight Community* Brian Oblinger's Community Strategy Academy* Skilljar * Salesforce Community